Sprouting machine can help solve fodder crisis

DR STEVE Collins reckons future fodder crises can be mitigated by using some of the principles that have saved millions of lives in Africa.

Steve is one of the few farmers in Ireland to use a sprouting machine, a 20ft-long insulated container that turns grains into more digestible sprouts which he feeds to his cattle, instead of ration or silage.

Steve has data to show that sprouted grain is a “more cost-effective” way of feeding cattle; it is also “a fail-safe” against extreme weather events such as drought and flooding.

The science, he explains, is that cows and other livestock evolved to eat grass and aren’t adapted to eat grain — they can’t access all the nutrients which are locked into storage compounds in seeds.

“When you sprout a grain, it activates its own enzymes and breaks down these storage compounds to make them available for the plant to grow,” he says.

“The machine contains trays of grains; you push the grain in one end, feed it out the other. It maintains it at 21 degrees, it waters it. A week later, you get out a barley sprout that’s about five inches tall, with a thick root matt ( pictured). I harvest every day from around January to June; I get 400-500kg of barley sprouts a day.

“The theory is if you provide cows with good nutrition, it keeps their digestive systems in balance and it gives them an appetite for rough grazing. And I’ve got loads of rough grazing.”

The technology was developed in Australia, to help combat the effects of drought, and Steve believes it would benefit many farms in this country.

“It has got huge potential in Ireland — especially for farmers in marginal land, to allow them to use rough grazing,” he says. “You don’t have to feed silage. For cattle, you need a source of roughage with it, such as straw — but that can be very low quality. And for pigs and chickens, you can feed it neat.

“I did a study with Tralee IT and what we found is it’s a much lower cost to maintain the cattle on the fodder and the straw than the ration and the straw. Unless you’ve got good-quality silage, it’s more cost-effective — including labour and electricity — to use the fodder machine, and rough straw.”

Even for the fortunate farmers with top-quality silage, the sprouting machine provides some insurance.

“These extreme weather events are going to get more frequent,” says Steve. “All the data says this is going to happen, and it is happening. And the more unpredictable the weather, the more we are going to need these backstops.”