Tag Archives: grasscutters

A Taste of Ghana

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Fresh coconut water…
…from a really fresh coconut.

One of the most fun parts of traveling for Heifer is trying all the new cuisines. I’ve tried some pretty weird stuff in my travels—goat brains just to name one—but for the most part I’ve loved getting to taste the foods of the world.

Yams with stewed yam leaves in spices (in the pots) laid
out for lunch. 
red red

Ghanaian food hasn’t disappointed, either. As you would expect, rice is a staple and available almost anywhere. Jollof rice is good if you like to spice things up a bit. A couple of my favorites have also been red red, a bean stew made with red pepper and red palm oil, and kele wele (pronounced “killy willy.”), which are fried plantains on the not-too-sweet side.

Grasscutter soup.

But I also really wanted to try grasscutter. It’s a local delicacy and, not to sound cliché, but, When in Rome, right?

As I took my first bite Roland waited for my reaction. “Any meat to compare it to?” he asked.  “Not really” was my answer. It truly has a flavor of it’s own. No “it tastes like chicken” from me. Also, if someone tells you it tastes like chicken? They’re lying.
It wasn’t bad, though. Kind of like goat, and my apologies to the goat lovers out there, but goat just is not my favorite. It was served in a tomato soup, which actually enhanced the flavor.
So, will I be asking for it again? Probably not, but I had to try.

Rodents of Unusual Size Really Do Exist

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And not just in the fairy tale The Princess Bride. (If you haven’t seen it, go watch it now. You’ll understand.)

Photo by James Grooves















Actually grasscutters really aren’t all THAT big, but they are big in relative terms. And they are rodents. And though they wouldn’t attack a human, they do have very sharp teeth they use to munch down on grass, hence the name.


Jonathan Mensah, Heifer participant, feeds
his grasscutters.

In Ghana, they’re highly desired bush meat. Some even consider it a delicacy. That’s why, in 1999 when Heifer Ghana was just getting started, Roland Kanlisi the deputy country director, began looking into whether the grasscutter could be domesticated and used in Heifer projects.


And they could. A German NGO had actually begun doing just that in neighboring Burkina Faso just a few years prior.

Today, the grasscutter projects are some of the most successful in Ghana. And it really is fascinating to hear how Heifer helped pioneered the process, which has resulted in both successful farmers and a renewed environment.

Before Heifer helped domesticate the animals for farming, hunters used to either set poisonous traps for the animals or set bush fires to, quite literally, smoke the creatures out. Eating the poisonous meat would harm the humans, and bush fires often got out of control, burning nearby farmland and leaving the earth scorched.

Now, farmers in Ghana are raising them in tiered cages. Farmers like Jonathan Mensah keep upwards of 30 of the animals at a time and say the demand is very high for the animals. The grasscutter projects have been so successful, there are now 105 grasscutter farmers in just one area outside Accra, and it’s not enough.

It’s also rare to find people hunting them in the wild anymore. The environment is saved and the farmers are making a pretty penny, too. Not a bad deal if you ask me.


Read more about why Heifer is working to help other communities move away from bushmeat.