#ThrowbackThursday video—sweetpotato recipe for silage success

East Africans are serving up

dual-purpose sweetpotatoes

on their family tables and

in their animal troughs

Check out these English and Swahili instructional films

on how to prepare and store silage made of sweetpotato vines

for a cheap, nutritious and long-lasting feed for your dairy cows.

Here’s the ‘Home-cooked’ recipe

Chop up the vines, leaves and roots of sweetpotato plants

Mix with some chopped Napier or other grass and wheat bran

Add molasses or other starter

Ferment for 30 days

Feed cows for 400 days

Sweetpotato silage for better dairy feeding and feed management

Jun 2017, 5-minute video, English narration

(12,795 views as of 1 Aug 2019)

Uandalizi wa chakula cha ng’ombe wa maziwa kwa njia ya silage

Jun 2017, 30-minute video, Swahili narration with English subtitles

(20, 013 views as of 1 Aug 2019)

This work was implemented under a Green Innovation Centres (GAIE) program on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation (BMZ). It was implemented by a team of researchers from the Mazingira Centre of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). The original design and development of the sweet potato vine silage (SPVS) technology was carried out by the International Potato Centre (CIP) with assistance from the University of Nairobi. The video was shot at the ‘climate-smart villages’ of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security, in Nyando village, Kisumu, Kenya.

Filamu hii inaonyesha usanifu asili na ustawishaji wa teknologia ya silage kutokana na viazi vitamu uliofanywa na Kituo cha Mazingira Centre kinachohusika na utafiti na elimu katika International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). Kazi hii imetekelezwa chini ya mradi wa Green Innovation Centres (GIAE) kwa niaba ya wizara ya serikali ya Ujerumani ya ushirikiano wa uchumi na maendeleo (BMZ).