Fodder in the Forest Garden:

Many Forest Gardeners keep livestock, and fodder plants make it easier to raise healthy livestock and reduce waste and costs for farmers.

Alongside a Forest Garden’s nutritious fruits and vegetables, livestock can provide important animal-source foods and valuable income, in addition to nutrient-rich manure. Since industrial livestock feed is expensive and of variable nutritional value, producing fodder at home reduces costs and provides better nutritional options.

Farmers can incorporate fodder trees in many areas of the Forest Garden, including in green wall and in alleys and contours. Fodder plots can also be planted to provide intensive fodder production for cut-and-carry systems. Forest Gardeners regularly prune their fodder trees to collect leaves and branches, which they can feed to their livestock fresh or process into leaf meal.   

Read more about popular low-land and high-land fodder trees in Chapter 9 of the Technical Manual. Additionally, learn more about fodder and how to make livestock meal by watching our latest webinar on making leaf meal from fodder trees, and dig deeper with the accompanying presentation.