Gujarat Institute of Desert Ecology (GUIDE) in association with the state forest department has taken up a project to develop Banni grasslands in the desert district of Kutch in a bid to arrest livestock migration from the region and ensure fodder security.

"We aim to develop 4,000 hectares of land in Banni as fodder security zone by 2013, as part of a Rs 664-lakh joint project with the Gujarat government," Officiating Director GUIDE, Dr Vijay Kumar told PTI.

"The move will help in arresting livestock migration from this desert district, which occurs due to fodder scarcity here," Kumar said adding the grass of Banni is three times more nutritive than other grasses.

The livestock population in Kutch region is pegged close to 17 lakh, of which nine lakh are cattle. Each cattle on an average requires a minimum of seven kg green fodder per day.

The main area under grassland in Kutch region is close to 5,078 sq kilometres, of which 2,617 sq kilometres falls under Banni, which is the largest stretch of land available in the region as all else is largely arid and semi-arid land.

"Average production of grass in the grassland region is close to 2,000 kgs per hectare, of which just 650 kg is deemed fit as fodder feed which is only 35 per cent, and remaining 65 per cent is weed," Kumar said.

Also there are issues related to salinity ingress of soil in the region for growing nutritive grass. .


"With introduction of saline reclamation techniques we have raised the average grass productivity from 248 kgs per hectare on saline land to 3,600 kg's per hectare," Kumar claimed.

As part of this on-going project 700 hectares of saline land has been developed as grassland with the help of NGOs and another 1,000 hectares has covered by the state forest department, he said.

"To overcome fodder scarcity government has to purchase grass from Southern districts of the state like Valsad between Rs 3-4 per kg and distribute it amongst the farmers here on subsidised rate of Rs 2 per kg," Kumar said.

"With the proposed development of grassland in Kutch we estimate that the government shall save about Rs 1.2 crore annually," he said.

In its endeavour to identify biodiversity hot-spots in the region, researcher at GUIDE have recorded 187 species of trees, shrubs and grass.

"Against the earlier known 33 species of grass in Banni, today our researchers have detected 45-50 such species," Kumar claimed.