Abundant natural feed resources are a wealth for many sectors such as animal husbandry. A single resource taken over and over can reduce quality and availability. For this reason, valuable steps are needed to find other alternatives, such as the use of cowpea.
It originally comes from sub-Saharan Africa. In terms of planting methods and potential, it is grown not only in tropical lowlands, especially in dry areas, but also in areas with warm temperatures. The production is excellent worldwide and widely consumed for its nutritional value.
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This is What You Should Know about Cowpeas as Good Fodder
Plants that are categorized into the legume category play an important role in certain areas, for example in sub-Saharan Africa, parts of Asia, and the American continent. This bean is the main starchy legume that is widely consumed for livestock in African states.
Its presence is important as an affordable source of nutrition with superior protein content. On a massive basis, this bean is grown to meet the global production of cowpea, even though its production status has continued to increase since its early days in cultivation.
The specifications of the plant are the part you need to know, to distinguish it from hundreds or thousands of other types of beans. This plant is an herbaceous legume that grows throughout the year, it does well in warm climates with ample rainfall.
That means you can find it in the warm season, temperate zone, and humid tropics. They prefer dry, sandy soil, or loam with sand in it. It resembles a shrub with a height of about 60 cm.
Cowpeas Characteristics
Closer, you will see if the flowers resemble bells with a variety of colors ranging from white, pink, deep yellow, purplish, or more like a bright blue. Dark green is the predominant color of the leaves with an average length of 10 cm each, smooth, glossy without any texture.
There are no branches at all, only a trunk about 3 meters long, covered in fine hair, straight, not too fat and the predominant color is dark purple. The type of root is the taproot. Cattle can eat roots, green leaves, young bean pods, and green seeds.
Farmers and breeders agree that it is a nutritious food source, high in protein, digestible, and indigestible carbohydrates. Other nutritional content includes potassium, fat and very low sodium, essential amino acids, and polyphenols with antioxidant activity. Further, this writing will discuss the nutritional composition, processing methods, and other important related matters.
Why Cowpea Is Popular?
Cowpea is a legume or starchy crop. Historically, in 2019 there were 8.9 million metric tons of production of this bean, a pretty fantastic amount, right? The numbers have continued to increase since the early 2000s when not many farmers and breeders are aware of this plant. Countries in Africa even contributed more than 74.3% of total production.
Why do many plants have this type of bean? Of course, this is related to the content of these nuts. They are a nutritious food source that has about 24% protein, between 11% dietary fiber, and 1112 mg/100 g potassium.
In terms of fat content, it is relatively low in fat but has sodium (16 mg/100 g). We know that protein is a type of nutrition that is needed by cattle. Moreover, it has a fairly large amount of essential amino acids.
More about the Nutritional Value of Black-Eyed Peas (Cowpea)
It is well known that they contain lots of vitamins, protein, and minerals. It is also rich in antinutrients, such as phytic acid and protease inhibitors which are good for consumption by humans and livestock. Some of the following nutritional content can be your reference for cultivating this pea with these many benefits.
- The first benefit is its rich content including fiber and vegetable protein. Several types of important vitamins such as A, C, thiamine, riboflavin, folate, and B6.
- It has iron, selenium, zinc, magnesium, phosphorus, and copper where these substances are needed by the body and metabolism system.
- Fiber and vegetable protein absorbed by the body will reduce hunger hormones but will continue to feel full.
- Intestinal bacteria need soluble fiber which is beneficial and improves digestion so that your livestock will be healthy.
- Livestock with regular and balanced consumption experience increased blood circulation and heart health.
- Livestock bodies need antioxidants obtained from food. These nuts have vitamins A and C and polyphenols which reduce inflammation and the risk of chronic disease in cattle.
In general, legumes can provide additional protein because the protein content in their leaves is much higher than grass. In addition to the following advantages such as quite high palatability, can last a long time in storage, and has good potential for preservation (fermentation) besides its main benefits in having economic nutritional value. Farmers realize that the taste of these nuts is delicious, aromatic, and soft, so they are liked by livestock. Adding cowpea as the main feed for your livestock will make the livestock grow healthy and have adequate nutrition. Good luck!