FIJI’S Agriculture Ministry will begin using imported Chinese Juncao grass to enhance livestock production in the country.
This was announced by Agriculture Minister Dr Mahendra Reddy while visiting the Legalega Research Station in Nadi yesterday.
“Every now and then, we note concerns from livestock farmers about poor quality of pasture and poor pasture support during drought,” he said.
“The Ministry of Agriculture in partnership with Government of China’s Juncao technology program have been undertaking experiments on optimising the use of Juncao grass because of its promising and high yielding characteristics such as a fodder for livestock.
“It has a highly developed root system that grows well at the temperature of 25 to 35 degrees Celsius and is generally defined as an herbaceous plant that can be used as culture substrate for cultivation of edible and medicinal fungi.
“The project implementation will be equally distributed among the three geographical locations with commodity specific to dairy, beef and small ruminant farms.”
According to Dr Reddy, Juncao grass could be supplied as green forage for livestock.
He said this could provide relief for farmers based in the Northern and Western divisions as prolonged dry spells were experienced on an annual basis.
In this regard, the Ministry of Agriculture plans to harvest at least 450 tonnes of green feed from one hectare of Juncao grass planted.
Mr Reddy said Juncao grass could also be cultivated during the wet season and prepared as silage feed for livestock during drier periods of the year.
Medium to large livestock farms would be identified for the initial planting of 0.5 acres of Juncao grass.
