Newsletter – Capacity strengthening and equipping of silage hub for silage block development

Abstract

One of the major challenges that might limit adoption of the technology is availability of sweetpotato vines throughout the year. Currently, there is a shortage of sweetpotato vines because farmers are starting to plant sweetpotatoes. This means that youth will not have a reliable source of vines during the next 3-4 months when farmers start harvesting the roots. 

Livestock farmers have a challenge of getting sweetpotato vine silage. A farmer in Wakiso district informed me that he paid Ushs 750 per kg of sweetpotato vine silage. He said that he found it cheaper to buy sweetpotato vine silage at that price than buying poor quality maize bran (mixed with sawdust or sand) for his pigs. He said that he will need 3 kgs/pig/day of sweetpotato vine silage (Ushs 2,250) compared to 4 kgs/pig/day of maize bran (Ushs 4,800). He also said that his pigs grower faster when they are fed sweetpotato vine silage than when they are fed on maize bran and weeds. He supplements maize bran with weeds which he picks from neighbours’ fields. He is able to sell castrated pigs within four months at an average weight of 50 kgs