The Department of Animal Science at the University of Ghana, in partnership with Kyoto University in Japan, has organized a follow up training workshop for key beneficiary farmers and stakeholders in grasscutter production in the Upper West Region.
The workshop sought to assess farmer’s achievement, and challenges in grasscutter production and how to address them.
The Ghana Grass cutter Project was launched in the Upper West Region in 2014 to support farmers in the region to rear grasscutters to boost family income, improve protein intake and promote environmental and wildlife conservation.
Speaking to Radio Ghana on the sidelines of the programme, the Head at Department of Animal Science in the University of Ghana and Project Manager, Professor Boniface Kayang, noted that grasscutter meat is a delicacy and has good market price for farmers.
The project is aimed at supporting farmers in the Upper West Region to rear grasscutters to augment family income, improve protein intake and promote environmental and wildlife conservation.
Following three successful training workshops held in 2014, 2016 and 2018, Professor Boniface Kayang observed that domestication of wildlife can help improve upon the agribusiness sector and empower farmers economically.
Professor Kayang also noted that the northern part of Ghana is facing unreliable food supply and insufficient animal protein thereby causing physical development of children to delay as compared to some parts of the country.
He expressed hope that the project will transform the lives of farmers in relation to their economic and nutritious status.
“We are actually looking at it from the point of view of grasscutter as a gift we give to farmers who will in turn give it back to others to increase the production base, GIFT has also been with the famers since 2017 they help the farmers so that through grasscutter production they can improve their own nutrition but we all know that this is just a starting, and is not easy for the farmers to produce the grasscutter immediately and start consuming them. Grasscutters has a good market price so the alternative for them is to sell and then they can get money and use that money to buy other animals to rear but we are now looking for market development to boost production and look at the business aspect so that farmers will make more money”, he stated.
The Project Leader for Grasscutter Initiative for rural Transformation (GIFT), an NGO, Dr. Rob Ogden said their 18-month pilot project with University of Ghana and Kyoto University in Japan will look at all aspects of the domestication, commercial breeding and economic production of grasscutter, with the aim of progressing the current farming activities toward large scale commercial production.
“So we have this concept; if you take care of your grasscutter, your grasscutter will take care of you and we are looking at how we can make this economically successful for everybody in this region. As part of that we will be looking at product development, trying to see how we can preserve grasscutter and make sure we get grasscutter brand in place and also make transition from local consumption to international market…We hope it will be great” Dr. Ogden explained.
Dr. Ogden was optimistic that the project will contribute to improving nutrition, reducing poverty and stimulating the agricultural livestock sector in rural Ghana.
Professor Miho Inoue-Murayama from Wildlife Research Center at the Kyoto University Japan who talked about the progress of the Ghana Grasscutter Project said currently about 400 grasscutters are being kept in 50 farms and second and third generation kids are being produced in the Upper West Region.
Professor Inoue-Murayama revealed that as part of the project activities, some Ghanaians were taken to Japan and trained in techniques of genotyping, pathogen survey, fodder analysis, reproduction and food processing.
She said plans were far advanced to can grasscutter for preservation and marketing.
She thanked MoFA, Farmers, Project members and supporting organizations for their tremendous contribution to successful results.
She was hopeful that there would be unprecedented progress in nutrition improvement and economic development in the region.
A beneficiary, Kula James who currently has 15 grasscutters after selling and using some for meals indicated the he used the proceeds to pay his children’s schools fees.
Story filed by Dennis Bebane
