‘Like braised pork for my goats’: Chinese farmer turns invasive plants into delicacy for livestock – saving on feed, removal costs
- A farmer in China has discovered his livestock have a taste for an invasive weed and is helping in the fight to eradicate it
- Experts say the exotic plant known as Canadian Yellow Flower can be very detrimental to the local environment, given its fast reproduction ability
The goats raised by a farmer in eastern China are being hailed by local media as a “rival” to an invasive plant species which Chinese authorities have been calling on the public to help eliminate for years.
Xiang Jizhong from Zhejiang said this year he has fed his herd of thousands of goats with Solidago canadensis L., a plant informally known as Canadian Yellow Flower in China. His goats consume as much as seven tonnes of the invasive plant every day, the Zhejiang Daily reported.
The plant species is native to North America and often forms colonies of upright plants, with many small yellow flowers. It is an invasive plant in other parts of the continent and several areas worldwide, including Europe and Asia.
Experts said the exotic plant can be very detrimental to the local environment given its fast reproduction ability — with a single branch capable of producing tens of thousands of seeds.
Xiang said he noticed the authorities’ alert about the Canadian Yellow Flower years ago, but last year contacted the Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences to ask about feeding his goats the plant.
“We discovered that although it is dangerous to other plants, it is a super fodder in terms of nutrition. The content of crude protein in it is nearly equal to that of leguminous plants,” he said.
“Feeding goats with this plant is like people eating hong shao rou (a famous Chinese meat dish ‘braised pork’),” said Xiang.
He also said there was no need to worry that the goat’s faeces would spread the plant’s seeds, as they were broken down in the animal’s digestive system.
The other advantage of using Canadian Yellow Flower to feed goats is that it reduced Xiang’s farm’s costs by 40-50 per cent.
He said he bought around 5 tonnes of this plant every day at one yuan per kg. Villagers earn a daily income of more than 100 yuan per person from harvesting the Canadian Yellow Flower for the farm.
This invasive plant turned delicacy has delighted Chinese internet users, with a video on the story having been viewed 76 million times on Weibo and eight million times on Douyin on Friday.
“Well done, sheep! You have made a great contribution,” wrote one person on Weibo.
“I think both this farmer and experts from the agricultural institute deserve an award for being Good Samaritans,” joked another user.
