Why Napier grass needs to be put in focus Author: Arrey Mbongaya Ivo (Director) African Centre for Community and Development Traditional livestock systems and pastoral nomadism in Africa are facing grave challenges including diminishing range lands, climate change, desertification, human activities including the planting of monocrops, slash and burn practices and general poor management of grazing land. These challenges when merged to the scarcity engineered by minimal engagements from growing sub-populations in fields related to livestock rearing and agriculture, the situation becomes even more dire hence arguing for the need for a system that can guarantee animal food alongside traditional human agricultural systems in a viable agro-forestry or conservation agricultural dimension. This article holds that Napier grass stand out as a viable plant species that can be grown alongside other crops in order to achieve food security and improved income generation among sub-populations in Africa also known to facing high levels of poverty (Hall and Midgley, 2004).

1. Why Napier grass needs to be put in focus
Author: Arrey Mbongaya Ivo (Director)
African Centre for Community and Development
P.O.Box 181, Limbe, Cameroon
http://youtube.com/user/AfricanCentreforCom
©2013 African Centre for Community and Development. All rights reserved.

2. Traditional livestock systems and pastoral nomadism in Africa are facing grave
challenges including diminishing range lands, climate change, desertification,
human activities including the planting of monocrops, slash and burn practices and
general poor management of grazing land. These challenges when merged to the
scarcity engineered by minimal engagements from growing sub-populations in fields
related to livestock rearing and agriculture, the situation becomes even more dire
hence arguing for the need for a system that can guarantee animal food alongside
traditional human agricultural systems in a viable agro-forestry or conservation
agricultural dimension. This article holds that Napier grass stand out as a viable
plant species that can be grown alongside other crops in order to achieve food
security and improved income generation among sub-populations in Africa also
known to facing high levels of poverty (Hall and Midgley, 2004).
Napier grass species grow widely in many parts of Africa including East, West and
Central Africa. It is used as food for livestock and is eaten by certain tribes in the North
West region of Cameroon as a supplement in the very popular Achu Soup. It has been
tested with cattle and goats in zero grazing projects among vulnerable and low-income
communities in East Africa as well. This article thus explores reasons and ways that
Napier grass can be used by households as a viable source of food for livestock as well as
an intricate part of the local farming systems. To begin with the following reasons act as
push factors why Napier grass needs to be vulgarized among households to improve on
their wellbeing:

3. 
Firstly Napier grass has already been tested as a viable source of food by both
traditional livestock keepers (Boonman, 1997) and donor-sponsored livestock
keeping programmes in Africa.

More over, Napier has been observed to grow for up to 9 months in some
ecosystems in Africa and to support extreme climatic conditions like extreme
heat and rainfall which are also characteristic of many parts of Africa especially
around the tropical rain forest areas and some parts of the grasslands in
Cameroon.

Besides its natural propagation rate is rapid and in good soils Napier grass can
grow with little or no human interventions. This reduces labour intensiveness that
is vital for the propagation of other species.

More over many farmers in Africa do not only grow crops for their households or
markets. They double as livestock keepers as part of complex strategies to
increase on their income levels and to increase their access to proteins or to
guarantee food security or fight poverty. Hence giving them a chance to grow
Napier grass alongside the food they grow will improve on the capacity to
diversify their incomes especially during global food or financial crises like in
2008.

Besides the cost of acquiring processed livestock feed is high for many
households or farmers living below the poverty line in Africa. Alternatives like
Napier grass offer the best hope for people in low income brackets to grow food
and animals in cost saving less labour intensive and sustainable farming models.

4. 
More so, the price of external inputs to grow maize plus the cost of processing
maize, cow pea and other alternatives into livestock feed arguably support the
idea that Napier grass can be the best option to adopt for agro-forestry schemes
aiming to empower poor farmers, families in Africa and the developing
communities across the globe.

Napier grass in the wild grows with other plant species and is eaten by grass
cutters, rabbits, goats, cattle, guinea pigs etc. It therefore can be viewed as part of
a natural ecosystem not an invasive species as it is considered many times. The
fact that it is eaten by a wide array of ruminants gives the necessary flexibility
that farmers within various vulnerabilities need in choosing the scale and the
purpose or animal for which they will be growing Napier grass for and may also
be a tool to improve access to proteins in a region in which over harvest of forest
animals has also been reported..

Human consumption of Napier is low when compared to crops like maize,
cassava etc hence making speculation on the grass very low or non-existent.
Speculation leads to high prices especially with edible crop species and may also
lead to food insecurity and the embedding of poverty in areas already affected by
chronic poverty. Getting out of such poverty is very difficult and may require
more resources in a globally resource scarce world.

Napier can be mixed with molasses to produce feed which farmers can use during
periods of scarcity. Mixing Napier with molasses and tying them in dark plastic
bags have been observed to increase the shelf life of the grass for as long as 3
years.

5. It is thus clear that there are many reasons why Napier grass can be used in agro-forestry
and to improve on people’s wellbeing in Africa and the world. While as stated above
some interventions have used Napier grass, the practice or knowledge about the practice
is yet to be vulgarized so that it can impact on many more stakeholders. The reasons for
this slow adaptation processes include:

Poor knowledge and information sharing between groups using Napier grass as a
way of agro-forestry or as a simple fodder crop. This is coupled with the fact that
research on the subject is usually limited to academic journals or articles that are
unaffordable and inaccessible by the poor farmers or sub-populations living
outside internet grids.

Little documentation on the subject has reduced the species’ power as a lucrative
tool among the various sub-populations to diversify production and incomes.

The treatment of Napier as an invasive species in small scale farming systems has
embedded systems that destroy Napier rather than grow it as feed.

Strong existing cultures of using alternatives like maize to make feed for animals.
This arguably leads to a situation where people are paying high for animal feed
not as the most suitable feed for their livestock but as the most acceptable and
vulgarized across sub-populations.

More so there is little to vocational training centres focusing on the subject across
the continent. This makes adoption to be slow and disjointed.
However Napier grass still remains a widely growing animal food across Africa. Many
farmers especially those who do not have large land have cultivated the grass in small
plots to feed their livestock while some have grown the species among their other crops

6. as a form of agro-forestry. Based on the existence of different approaches on the use and
methods of planting of Napier, the following ways stand out as possible inroads that can
be used to adopt, use and improve their wellbeing with Napier grass.

Napier can be grown alongside tree species which are good in nitrogen fixation
hence help to keep the soil fertile so that both species and other species can thrive
within a single farm (Boonman, 1993). Other food crops like Gnetum africanum
(Eru) which are climbers can also be planted near the trees. Other medicinal and
edible plants like moringa, pepper, plantains etc can also be added in the system
to increase the yields and possibilities for more returns to the farmers or families.

Local Napier varieties can also be improved to increase yield and resilience
especially as many areas of Sub-Saharan Africa are hit by the harsh fallouts of
climate change including desertification and the loss of livelihoods hence poverty.

More so, many more stakeholders should be trained into Napier grass cultivation
in order to vulgarize its use across sub-populations. More users and more diverse
farming systems will reduce farmer dependence on expensive alternatives like
maize based industrial feeds impacted by speculation and which are generally
beyond the rich of many segments of population already affected by vertical and
horizontal inequalities.

More over, Napier can be farmed industrially and sold in local markets just other
edible vegetables or even grasses. With diminishing rangelands recorded across
many parts of Africa, land can be allocated by governments and communities for
the farming of Napier grass for national and community needs. Education aimed
at transforming local logic which generally places Napier grass as an invasive

7. species will have to be reshaped. Civil Society Organizations, farmer field schools
and traditional authorities must play active roles with their citizens or
governments in ensuring effective delivery of such interventions aimed at
improving use of Napier grass.

Other related fodder technologies or livelihoods options which use Napier in
production and preservation of feed with molasses must also be encouraged to
attract new users and maintain old users whose present livelihoods strategies are
increasingly under threat from desertification, droughts, loss of pastureland from
climate variability etc.

Napier grass can be used in models of conservation agriculture. It can be used to
feed pigs and goats whose dung can be used to produce organic manure to
improve on degraded soils hence impacting positively on crop yields and farmers’
income. Napier grass can be farmed alongside vegetables and nitrogen fixing
plants Conservation agriculture is a labour saving device for vulnerable subpopulations as many species are planted together, harvested together and
supplement each other on the farm (Bishop-Sambrook, C. 2003).

More so, if Napier grass is integrated in farming practices it will put the farmer in
a powerful position to gather knowledge and improve on agricultural research
generally as the farmer remains the closest observer between his species whether
they be in an agro-forestry model, conservation agriculture or analogue forestry
(Ashby et al, 2000).
Increasing the practical leverage of farmers over their
practices and the research there from leads to more farmer innovation hence the

8. possibility of vulgarizing knowledge gathered to other farmer unions or subpopulations.
Despite the difficulties so far in vulgarizing use of Napier grass in many African
communities, this article has successfully demonstrated that the grass needs to be put in
more focus. It is a resilient local species in many African communities. It is eaten by
humans and animals and can be a viable alternative expensive industrial feed which is far
beyond the income levels of many animal keepers. It can also grow alongside other
edible plants hence should not always be treated as an invasive species but a necessary
element in the fashioning of a sustainable agro-forestry intervention. . More so, it can be
mixed with molasses to improve on its shelf life hence it can be very useful in areas
where grass cultivation is seasonal, facing climatic threats or even where animal
husbandry is affected by human activities including urbanization. Napier grass is thus a
crop that should be treated with more keen interest in the 21st century in which
populations are expected reach nine billions by 2050.

9. References and Bibliography
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and J.I. Roa. 2000. Investing in Farmers as Researchers: Experience with Local
Agricultural Research Committees in Latin America. Cali, Colombia: Centro
Internacional de Agricultura Tropical. 199pp.
Anindo D.O. & Potter, H.L.1994. Seasonal variation in productivity and nutritive
value of Napier grass at Muguga, Kenya. E. Afrc. Agric. For. J. 59:177-185.
Bishop-Sambrook, C. 2003. Labour-saving technologies and practices for
farming and household activities in Eastern and Southern Africa. Rome,
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Bishop-Sambrook, C. et al. 2004. Conservation agriculture as a labour-saving
practice for vulnerable households. Rome, FAO/IFAD.
www.fao.org/ag/ags/programmes/en/enhance/FAO_IFAD_CA_Tanzania.pdf
Boonman, J.G.1997. Farmers success with tropical grass: crop/pasture rotation in
mixed farming in East Africa. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Hague. pp. 95.
Boonman, J.G., 1993.East Africa’s grasses and fodders: Their ecology and
husbandry. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dortrecht, Nethelands.pp.343.
Brown, D. & Chavulimu, E.1985. Effects of ensiling on five forage species in
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grass), Pennisetum spp. (Bana grass), Ipomoea batatas (sweet potato vines) and
Cajanus cajan (pigeon pea leaves). Anim. Feed Sci.Technol. 13:1-2.

10. Braun, A., G. Thiele and M. Fernandez. 2000a. Complementary Platforms for
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©2013 African Centre for Community and Development. All rights reserved.