A beef farm in Transmara County has cut its feed costs by 100 per cent by replacing expensive grains and concentrate fodder with freely available sugarcane waste.
During sugarcane processing to make sugar about 28 per cent of the cane is left behind as sugarcane bagasse. This is usually a fine powdery waste product that varies in colour from dark black, grey, or white. Kenya produces about 2.4 million tons of bagasse every year. Only one-quarter of this is reused as energy for the factories and the remaining 75 per cent is thrown away or burned. As it has been said, one man’s poison might be another’s meat. Beef cattle rearers have begun picking up this waste sugar mills are happy to have found takers and mixing it half and half with grasses to make a complete ration for their cattle.
Located 40 kilometers from Transmara Sugar Company, Olosida farm has increased its cattle herd size from 69 to 166 in the last year they have been feeding their cattle on sugar bagasse. According to the farm’s founder and CEO Emmanuel Lekishon, this is because some of the cost savings they have made not buying feed have gone into bulking up their herd.
“Previously we spent about Sh30,000 on maize concentrate feed for three to six months to fatten each of our steers before sale. Today we do not spend a single shilling. We are saving well over 200 per cent from each bull and in time because we do not have to dedicate as much money into buying maize concentrates or as much grass during droughts as we did before while also reducing the amount of land we dedicate to growing grasses, we will increase our livestock size to 1,000,” he opined.
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While high in fiber, bagasse is not easy for cattle to feed on because it is too fine and is not easy to digest. It also has a low crude protein content of one to four per cent. To make it more digestible for the animals and increase the protein content of the animal’s rations Emmanuel harvests 150 tons of Juncao, Rhodes, and Super Napier grass which have a crude protein percentage of 11.3–18.6, 8-10, and 16–18 respectively.
“We feed the cattle on less than a ton of bagasse every day with each one consuming about four kilograms of the sugar waste and four kilograms of grass every day. They also get complementary fodder from grazing on the farm’s paddocks.” Despite his steers taking three to five months more to reach maturity, he said that the trade-off in terms of cost-cutting is well worth it.
Almost every month when his lorry lands at the Transmara Sugar Company factory, he doesn’t even bother hiring labourers to fill it up as the firm’s employees are happy to do so themselves. “Because most farmers around the factory have the bulk of their land under sugarcane, they struggle to get anyone who can find a use for their waste,” he pointed out.
The bagasse should be stored in a place where it is relatively free of moisture and needs to be used for 60–90 days.
To make the grass and bagasse ration, Olosida farm cuts the dried grass with a chuff cutter before mixing in the sugarcane bagasse and sometimes molasses to boost the bulls’ energy intake.
Lekishon mentioned that as cows are creatures of habit, a farmer might need to introduce their cattle to the bagasse slowly. “They however quickly grow to love it because it has a similar pungent molasses smell which cows like,” he said.
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Olosida Farm is also trialing the use of bagasse in making pelleted animal feeds which will be sold under the Lishe Kamili Feeds brand name. This has seen the farm make it into the 2024 Ayute Africa Challenge Kenya Business Incubation Program as one of its 17 innovators. The competition looks to fund young African entrepreneurs advancing technologies that improve the lives of smallholder farmers and increase food production.
“We aim to use Lishe Kamili to reduce bagasse waste by 10 per cent in Transmara and Sonny sugar factories. This will reduce the cost of feeds for livestock farmers and also go some way to reducing the environmental pollution caused by the waste from the sugar industry,” concluded Lekishon.
Olosida Farm: 0720447523