World Ark Magazine - January/February 2008 - (Page 23) PHOTO BY JAMES GROVES Grasscutter cages stand like a miniature city in the courtyard of the Veliano family home on the outskirts of Accra. Benjamin Veliano, 30, began his successful business with only three wild grasscutters and one cage. 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 fire to the bush and killing the animals as they ran. Sometimes, grasscutters were snared with nooses or even www.heifer.org killed with poison. The resulting meat, though tainted and unfit for consumption, was sold to the public. Raising grasscutters in confi nement 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 A prized delicacy that fetches top dollar, grasscutters look like little more than a cross between a beaver and a rat. January/February 2008 | WORLD ARK 23 http://www.heifer.org
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