Agrodoks

Agrodok 051, Improving Lowland Rice Cultivation - 01-01-2014

Useful Management Practices for Smallholders in Tropical Africa

This Agrodok on lowland rice is primarily meant for smallholders in tropical Africa, because the advocated cultivation and processing practices reflect the main circumstances encountered by rice farmers on this continent. The aim of this Agrodok is to inform extension workers and smallholder rice farmers in tropical Africa about current views concerning efficient, profitable and sustainable lowland rice farming and rice processing.

Lowland rice cultivation is practised on about half of the total rice area in tropical Africa. On the other half upland rice cultivation is practised. Deep-water rice cultivation occupies only a very small part of the total rice area.

Version 1, 2014 

Agrodok 052, Backyard Grasscutter Keeping - 01-01-2014

This Agrodok provides up-to-date information on grasscutter farming to benefit the informed farmer and extension and rural development officers. 1 Introduction 8 It targets farmers wishing to diversify their farms as well as their families’ diet, and those considering growing grasscutters for the market. The name grasscutter is preferable to cane rat, which refers to the animal’s reputation as a marauder of planted crops (sugar cane!). Its popular name grasscutter (or cutting-grass) better befits a species on its way to domestication

Version 1, 2014 

Agrodok 053, Crop Residues for Animal Feed - 01-01-2015

Especially in Stall-Feeding

The idea for this booklet on straw feeding emerged some years ago during a meeting, while discussing an Agrodok on dairy cattle husbandry. That Agrodok was to have a chapter on animal feed, especially fodders such as grasses and crop residues. However, this would have meant squeezing too much information into a few pages, which would not have done justice to the vast amount of information available on feeding straws. A separate Agrodok was needed on the subject.

Pressure on grazing lands continues to increase and in many parts of the world livestock will continue to provide an important supplementary source of income for many resource-poor farmers. In addition, straws play an important role in the sustainable management of the soil

Version 1, 2015

Agrodok 054, Edible Insects in Africa - 01-01-2015

An Introduction to Finding, Using and Eating Insects

When you first saw the title of this book, you may have found the idea of eating insects unfamiliar or strange. Actually, we all eat insects every day without knowing it. Insects or parts of insects are present in almost all processed food. Because insects attack crops, and because we cannot use pesticides on food just before harvest, it is difficult to control them at that stage of the production chain. They often end up in food products during processing. No need to worry, though: regulations control the amount of insect particles! Most importantly, here we want to share the idea that insects, a high-protein food source, can also be eaten as part of a meal. Eating insects – also called ‘entomophagy’ – has been part of the human diet since the beginning of humanity, especially in the tropics.

Version 1, 2015

Agrodok 055, Beef Production - 01-01-2016

Beef, meat from cattle, is produced worldwide in an enormous variety of systems; by nomads in semi desert areas, to intensive dairy farmers who sell male calves for their meat and cull cows that no longer produce enough milk, as well as ranchers whose main aim is to produce meat.

The main aim of this Agrodok is to provide information on how to increase beef production in extensive and low-input systems, utilising existing conditions, but in a different way. This is a different form of intensification of production and requires a different look at the system, and probably a little more labour and specific inputs.

Version 1, 2016