Beasts of Urban

Dairy cows are a rarity in Ghana. These Jerseys, destined for a new Heifer project, were flown in from a healthy herd in South Africa. They are just one form of urban livestock that will help Accra deal with its exploding population and increased need for food. Photo by James Groves

These are no ordinary passengers, but dairy cows, some of the few in Ghana. They are Jerseys brought from a healthy herd in South Africa to begin a new venture here in the outskirts of the capital, part of a growing effort at urban livestock in this rapidly expanding city. The Ghanaian government has tried other breeds — Friesians, Brown Swiss — but with little success. These larger breeds succumbed quickly to the heat, humidity and tick-borne diseases. The hope is that the Jerseys, a smaller breed, will prove more adaptable to the local climate. Heifer Ghana will place them with families near Accra, where the coastal climate is cooler and there are more markets and veterinarians.

The bright red-and-yellow trucks rumble through town with the cows inside trying to adjust their legs and balance from plane to truck. The animals are bound for an agricultural research station perched on a hillside just outside the city where they will be quarantined. The trucks leave the highway and strain in low gears for a mile up a rutted, red-dirt road. The cows unload into a large holding barn and run for the troughs of water. Only after they drink their fill do they notice the mounds of fresh, green grass. The tired animals remain oblivious to the crowd of people gathering around their enclosure.

And that is pretty much the extent of the action. There will be a small but sincere ceremony held under blue and white tents with speeches from Heifer Ghana staff and government officials. The speakers will proclaim to the men and women in attendance, soon-to-be recipients of the new dairy cows, that the new animals “will make our country a land flowing with milk and honey.” But the recipients, more interested in the cows than the ceremony, are coaxed away from the holding barn just long enough to politely endure the speeches and pose for a group picture. They will soon make their way back to the barn and prop their arms again on the railings to stare at the herd of cows. Their excitement can only hold one focus, and today that focus is the new dairy cows.

THE JOURNEY’S TRUE PURPOSE

I had come to Ghana to cover this event: the arrival of dairy cows in Ghana and the beginning of a new Heifer project here in Greater Accra. But now it seemed a non-event, little more than a plane landing and cows being loaded and unloaded from trucks. The Heifer project recipients will not get to leave with a cow today; they will not even get to milk one. The livestock must remain in quarantine for several more weeks, by which time I will be gone.

But I am wrong about the true purpose of my trip, even though I don’t know it yet. Cows landing at the airport was never meant to be the central focus any more than the bridal procession should be the most important part of a marriage. Instead, it is a largely symbolic event, demarcating a threshold opening into a new and hopeful future. In this case, the new dairy cows represent the growing importance of livestock in Greater Accra.

Like many cities in the world, Accra is swelling rapidly. It has increased from less than 1.5 million in 1984 to nearly 3 million in 2000, making up 15 percent of Ghana’s total population. And it’s only increasing. Estimates place the current population of Greater Accra at 6 million. One thing this growth means is that more food is needed. Urban and peri-urban livestock is one piece of the answer in this coastal city.

The protein from dairy products will certainly augment the health of the recipients. But food here is more than merely sustenance for the body. It fulfi lls cultural and social needs as well. As more people flock to the city bringing their food traditions with them, the demands for these foods in particular will increase. And the market will respond. Which explains the ubiquitous restaurant signs for traditional Ghanaian fair, especially banku and fufu — spicy soups made from okra and peanuts and palm oil — with a cube of meat floating in every bowl. But where do you raise meat in a city of 6 million?

THE VALUE OF GRASSCUTTERS

The best way to hold a live grasscutter, apparently, is by its tail. Benjamin Veliano pulls one from a cage and holds it up proudly, wearing his shy, boyish smile for the photographer. A prized delicacy that fetches top dollar, grasscutters look like little more than a cross between a beaver and a rat.

The grasscutter — aka “agouti,” aka “cane rat” — is in fact a rodent native to much of central and western Africa. Its meat is higher in protein than beef, while also being lower in fat and cholesterol. As more people migrate to Accra from rural areas, they bring with them traditions and foods, especially bushmeat. Bushmeat is a general term with a slightly derogatory connotation, referring to any wild game hunted for food. Due to the growing demand, some entrepreneurs are keeping grasscutters as small livestock —  micro-livestock, you might call them.

Traditionally, hunters nabbed grasscutters in the wild by setting fi re to the bush and killing the animals as they ran. Sometimes, grasscutters were snared with nooses or even killed with poison. The resulting meat, though tainted and unfit for consumption, was sold to the public. Raising grasscutters in confinement ensures high-quality, safe meat and more humane, sustainable practices.

Veliano is only 30 years old, but he has already built a respected grasscutter business on the outskirts of Accra. He started in 1996 with three animals and, with training from Heifer Ghana, has now built his herd to 230. Income from the grasscutters put him and his younger siblings through school. He now also supplies grasscutters to other Heifer projects.

The courtyard of his family home is a maze of wooden cages rising five or six high from the swept red dirt. The courtyard looks like a scale model of a city, with blocks of high-rises separated by meandering streets. There are hundreds of hand-built apartments here. Each one houses a pair of grasscutters; many house a mother and her young.

Veliano is the oldest of five children. In Tshirt and jeans, he sits with his father, sister and brother under a citrus tree in a corner of the courtyard and recounts what started as a hobby and has now become the family’s main source of income. He started raising grasscutters with three young that he collected from the wild and raised by hand. He would follow behind hunters during the dry season and collect the abandoned young when the adult grasscutters were killed. Veliano was only in high school at the time. With the money he made from selling grasscutters — which can bring up to 300,000 cetis, or $30 each — he was able to put himself through polytechnic school, where he studied drafting. (For the sake of comparison, a tray of eggs costs 30,000; a chicken, 50,000; and a goat, 250,000 to 300,000 cetis.) He has become so successful at raising grasscutters, in fact, that he is making more money from them than from his job as a draftsman.

Within Heifer Ghana’s grasscutter project, Veliano is a special case. He did not receive his original animals from Heifer Ghana, but has participated in several trainings. While he could have received more animals from the project, he did not want to be selfi sh and so allowed his share to go to another farmer. His main role, though, is as a supplier of highquality breeding stock. Over the last decade, Veliano has worked very hard to increase the good traits in his animals, selectively breeding them and bringing in new grasscutters to ensure genetic diversity. He is now a major local producer of grasscutters and has supplied another Heifer project at a local prison with grasscutters.

The masonry house being erected on the far side of the courtyard is further evidence of Veliano’s success. But with the constant encroachment of the city and the loss of productive land to development, he wonders how he will be able to keep and feed even these diminutive livestock.

Small as the grasscutters may be, there are even smaller animals daily working the land in Accra and its environs.

THE HONEY MAN

We hear the drone of the beehives before we actually see them. The rough wooden boxes stand in a small clearing beneath a tree a few steps off the path. Maize fields spread out in all directions. We all don protective veils, then pull back the curtain of tall grasses and step into the clearing. Christian Amenya, who keeps these hives, slowly lifts the wooden lids to reveal the comb structure inside. The exhibit is short-lived, however, as the aggressive bees find exposed skin and send everyone running back to the tiny village of Horkope.

The Dan West School, founded by Christian Amenya in the Horkope community, draws students of all ages from miles around. Amenya, a Heifer project participant, used the proceeds from selling the honey to found the school. Photo by James Groves

Amenya doesn’t look old enough to have been farming for 20 years. His youthful ebullience belies his age and accomplishment. Though he has only recently begun keeping bees — he received his first hives in 2004 — last year he earned himself another name: Best District Farmer awarded by the department of agriculture.

The children of Horkope, however, know him as “Principal.” In 2006 Amenya began a small school here with the money he made from selling honey. He thought it appropriate to name the school Dan West Elementary, after Heifer International’s founder. The school has grown to 55 children from across a 4-mile radius. One of the school’s main draws is the meals it serves the children. But even with all this work, Amenya has yet to receive his teacher’s salary. His main income is still from the sale of honey.

Honeybees have been called nature’s hardest working animals. And, since they provide both food and profit, it’s not too much of a stretch to think of them as livestock. But today, the honeybee is receiving attention for much more distressing reasons. Apis mellifera, the European or Western honeybee, has become the symbol for the unknowable consequences or our actions and the uncertainty of our future; it is the canary in the mineshaft of our increasingly polluted and changing world. In the U.S., hundreds of thousands of hives have simply disappeared. There are many theories as to what has caused this rapid and sudden loss of honeybees, from colony collapse disorder to pesticide use to cell phones. Whatever the cause, the fall has been swift and shows no sign of abating.

But here, Amenya’s bees are thriving. They are not the common European honeybees, but African honeybees, a subspecies of Apis mellifera. They are also a progenitor of the Africanized, or “killer” bee found in Central and South America. (The term “Africanized” generally refers to a cross between an African honeybee and a local species, resulting in a more aggressive, more unpredictable bee.) But their bad reputation may be unfair; African bees produce a sweeter honey than their European cousins.

Here in Dankyira, honey is more than just a sweetener. It is used as medicine on wounds and burns, to soothe coughing and asthmatic children, even as a hair dressing. And it is used to pay one’s respects. Before we leave Horkope, Amenya produces two gallon-jugs of honey. One he presents, kneeling, to his chief; the other he gives to Heifer Ghana. The syrupy liquid is dark and smoky, redolent of molasses and tropical storms.

The rainy season has begun in earnest and low clouds are racing around overhead. I duck into an eatery for one last bowl of fufu before I get on the plane. Back home, there will be no groundnut soup, no pounded cassava. Sitting at long table, I revisit the central question of my trip: How will Accra continue to feed itself as it grows? Urban livestock, I now know, is part of the answer to that question. I pull a small chunk of meat from my bowl and chew it into submission. No, it’s not grasscutter. But I know where I could get some if I wanted it.