Investment opportunities for ruminant livestock feeding in developing countries

Feed for cattle in vietnam

The World Bank just released a new report that “assesses where the demand for feed [for ruminants in developing countries] is likely to change the most, and where investments in feed are most likely to increase animal productivity and improve the livelihoods of those who raise livestock. It covers policy, institutions, knowledge and innovation as well as technical issues – all in the context of rapidly changing demand for livestock products in developing countries.”

Based on growth and market opportunities, number of poor and pro-poor potential and supply constraints the study identifies first Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia as priority areas, and then, within these areas, it identifies three commodity value chains in five regions of particularly great potential to benefit poor producers and consumers. They are:

• Dairy in East Africa and South Asia;
• Beef in West Africa;
• Small ruminant meat in West Africa and Southern Africa.

In terms of feed types and sources, general trends analyzed in the report show a reduction in the use of crop residue such as straws and stovers; an increase in the use of crop-by-products (such as oil cakes and by-products of the milling industry) and concentrates; an increase in the area planted for forages, in particular in dairy systems; and a sharp increase in feed procurement from the market instead of supply from the own farm.

In terms of opportunities for feed-related investments with major positive impacts on the poor, more specific areas of improvement that warrant priority in targeting investments are:

• Technological feed improving solutions including: more attention to research and development for feed/food crops; better ration formulation; and forage seed production.
• Institutional issues include access to land and water for all smallholders, as a primary concern and as the main incentive to improve crop-residues. Effective governance on feed quality is also a common institutional issue raised. Similarly, reduction on transaction costs (both to access the feeds and to participate in product markets) is another key area for institutional investment support. The report strongly advocates support to Business Development Services – interpreted in the broadest sense as a key to facilitating access to feeds, markets and for reducing transaction costs.
• While for many households increasing animal numbers is perceived as attractive, there are severe environmental limitations of the extent this is possible. Policies and investment that increase per animal productivity, such as adequate ration formulation and emphasis on mineral supplementation in the feed and nutrition domain, as well as genetic and health improvement related investment will be important. However, in some areas, increased efficiency (producing the same with fewer animals, or more with the same number of animals) can also be achieved through incentive systems such as payment for environmental services.

Download the report

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The report was prepared under the guidance of Jimmy Smith and Francois le Gall of the World Bank by a team consisting of William Thorpe, Derek Baker, Shirley Tarawali of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILR), and assisted by Rainer Asse, Augustine Ayantunde, Michael Blummel, Oumar Diall, Alan Duncan, Abdou Fall, Bruno Gerard, Elaine Grings, Mario Herrero, Chedly Kayouli, Ben Lukuyu, Siboniso Moyo, An Notenbaert, Tom Randolph, Steve Staal, Nils Teufel, Francis Wanyoike and Iain Wright. Further inputs were provided by Cees de Haan and Gunnar Larson from the World Bank. Peer reviewers are Brian Bedard (World Bank), Stephane Foreman (World Bank) and Joyce Turk (USAID).

 

Well-managed tropical forage-based systems improve livelihoods and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions

New research from CIAT – the International Center for Tropical Agriculture shows that well-managed “LivestockPlus” systems involving improved forage crops – plants grazed by livestock – have impressive environmental credentials.

Published in chapter 11 of CIAT’s new flagship publication ‘Eco-Efficiency: From Vision to Reality‘ – the authors conclude that “well-managed tropical forage-based systems can contribute not only to improved livelihoods of the rural poor in the tropics, but also to the overall quality of the environment. With a global community increasingly cognizant of the environmental implications of agriculture, forage-based systems should figure prominently in future innovative agricultural systems.

See a related story: Livestock: Cure or curse?

See related work as part of the CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish

 

Project team gathers in Tanga to kick-start MilkIT project

On 24-25 April scientists from India and Tanzania gathered in Tanga, Tanzania for the inception meeting of the IFAD-funded MilkIT project. The project is implemented by ILRI and CIAT are a major partner. This was the first opportunity for the whole project team to get together, familiarize themselves with the project and begin to develop activities.

Partners from the project in Tanzania are

• Sokoine University of Agriculture, Department of Animal Science and Production
• Tanzania Livestock Research Institute, Tanga-Centre, Tanga

and in India:

• Institute of Himalayan Environmental Research and Education (INHERE)
• Central Himalayan Rural Action Group (CHIRAG)

Representatives from each partner organization participated in the meeting.

MilkIT is being implemented under the umbrella of the Livestock and Fish Research Program of the CGIAR and we planned activities jointly with a related project in Tanzania funded by Irish Aid.

During the meetings we spent time aligning our thinking on some key concepts: innovation platforms and how they work; and value chain approaches. We also discussed site selection following recent scoping visits to various prospective sites. Partnership arrangements, gender considerations and links to IFAD programs were also on our agenda.

Finally we made a start on developing activity plans for Year 1.

So the MilkIT train has now left the station and we are looking forward to seeing activities begin to take shape in coming months.

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The project is funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). It started in January 2012 and runs for three years

Basic project information

Project brochure

News on the project

Outputs from this project

Project wiki

This project is part of the CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish.

 

Barriers to the uptake of improved feeding strategies

At last week’s Africa-RISING ‘quick feed‘ project inception meeting, Werner Stür shared some of the reasons why improved animal feeding strategies seem not to be taken up, and some ways to address this.

He started by arguing that current future livestock productivity challenges would benefit significantly from “a little more feed per animal.” He outlined four main ways to get this feed to the animals:

• Reduce the number of animals, improve herd structure or grow additional feed
• Introduce forage legumes to improve diet quality; or grasses to increase available feed quantity
• Grow specific fodder crops
• Strategic feeding of available feed resources – smarter use

He also explained that these technical solutions are much less simple to accomplish than we might think. Why?

• Technologies are seldom simple
• Smallholder farming systems are diverse
• People and livelihoods differ
• The incentives to increase production are nor always in place

He concluded that ‘one-size-fits all technologies’ don’t work. Instead we need need a systems-oriented innovation process that

• includes all relevant stakeholders
• takes account of the range of farming system and livelihoods in the area
• places innovation in the context of the value chain to ensure that farmers reap the benefits of innovations

More information on the project

More information on the inception workshop

 

Innovation, scaling out and market development: Fodder adoption project synthesis report

Under the title ‘Enhancing Livelihoods of Poor Livestock Keepers through Increased Use of Fodder’, the goal of this IFAD-funded Programme was to improve the livelihoods of poor livestock keepers in Ethiopia, Syria and Vietnam in a sustainable manner through increased access to and adoption of fodder interventions.

With activities in Ethiopia, Syria and Vietnam and linking with a project implemented in Nigeria and India, the project aimed to better understand the factors and processes that determine the success of fodder interventions in developing countries. This understanding was used to strengthen the capacity of poor farmers and service providers to better meet their needs for fodder.

The project completion report has just be published, providing information on four project output areas:

• Mechanisms for strengthening and/or establishing multi-stakeholder alliances that can enable scaling up and out of fodder technologies.
• Options for effective delivery systems including innovative communication strategies and on farm interventions to improve fodder supply.
• Enhanced capacity of project partners to experiment with and use fodder innovations through effective communication, technical information and training in diverse aspects placing fodder interventions in the context of systems of innovation.
• Generic lessons with wide applicability on innovation processes and systems, communication strategies and partnerships that provide an enabling environment to enhance scaling up and out of fodder innovations.

In addition, outcomes and lessons are drawn together around three major strands: Innovation, Scaling Out and Market Development

Innovation

The assimilation of innovation systems thinking into project activities was an emerging theme of the project and played out in different ways in the three project countries. In Ethiopia, the project pro-actively established and facilitated local innovation platforms at study sites and used these as the central mechanism for bringing about change in farming practice. Innovation platforms were combined with introduction of planted fodder early in the project. This combination of technology introduction and a focus on enhancing stakeholder networking was a hallmark of activities in Ethiopia. The result was modest adoption of forage technologies at farm level accompanied by significant change in stakeholder attitudes and behaviour which we anticipate will lead to more substantial long-term change at farm level.

In Syria the approach was similar although perhaps with greater emphasis on introducing new technologies to farmers. In Syria there was a more challenging external environment with a strong extension service, heavy government intervention in pricing of agricultural commodities and few NGO or private sector actors. This scarcity of non-government actors limited the diversity actors involved in innovation platforms. Within these constraints we noted strong farmer adoption of technologies introduced by the project and a greater connectedness of key actors including the Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform and the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme.

In Vietnam we saw widespread system change in farming practice from subsistence based cattle system to a market-oriented system in which breeding and feeding practices were substantially changed with strong benefits for farmer livelihoods. This change was facilitated by the Fodder Adoption Project and, in the case of the more advanced learning site Ea Kar, predecessor projects led by CIAT. In Vietnam a coalition of local key stakeholders was formed at each learning site and these took responsibility for driving and facilitating cattle development. While national project partners were initially instrumental in facilitating local coalitions, this responsibility quickly evolved to local partners, the district extension of agriculture offices. Also, the composition of local coalitions changed as the project progressed. These stakeholder changes were described in detail in a paper by Khanh et al (2009). “Actor-oriented” approaches were a strong element of project activities.

As in Ethiopia, there was an early emphasis on introduction of promising forage technologies using participatory approaches. “Village learning activities” were used to great effect to develop farmer capacity to experiment with new feeding and breeding practices. Following early pockets of success in introducing new technologies there was strong emphasis on working with local government extension workers to bring about sustained change, link farmers with markets and upscale adoption. As the project progressed the range of actors reached by the project widened; actors from across the value chain became involved, notably traders and buyers of cattle from distant markets. The link between promising technologies and linking farmers to markets through facilitation of stakeholder linkages was a key element of success in Vietnam and in many ways, the example of Vietnam provided the project with a flagship model for livestock development, elements of which were tried in the other countries.

In summary, across all three project countries our approach was to combine the introduction of promising technologies with a pro-active emphasis on bringing key actors together at important points in the development process. In Ethiopia and Syria this was done through innovation platforms while in Vietnam the same end was achieved through facilitation of ad hoc interactions among important stakeholders. In Vietnam a tipping point was reached and we saw widespread system change following continuous engagement by CIAT and local partners in project sites for a number of years. In Ethiopia and Syria the tipping point has yet to be reached but we see promising signs of change in actor behaviour which will need to be followed to assess whether they are sustained and lead to widespread change in farmer practice.

Scaling Out

Scaling out activities were somewhat different in the three project countries partly because project activities were at a different point in the development trajectory in each country.

The most advanced scaling out activities were in Vietnam where a strong strategy for scaling out early successes was developed. The general approach was to focus at village level to begin with through introduction of new practices through Village Learning Activities. Some of this had happened before FAP began. Having established early pockets of success local extension workers were brought on board through site visits and interactions with farmers. The project then provided technical support for scaling out of successful technologies but the scaling out was led by the local extension department. Such scaling out approaches were still relatively local involving the local district extension workers. An important activity of FAP was to extend project activities to a completely new site, Ha Tinh. This was achieved through exchange visits early in the project. A key element success was allowing government officials to hear first hand from their counterparts in the advanced learning site about how things had progressed in their site. This led to rapid adoption of new feeding practices in the new learning site over project life.

In Ethiopia, scaling out of technologies did not progress beyond district level (woreda) during the lifetime of FAP. However, the project did have some impact in terms of scaling out of innovation systems approaches to actors beyond project sites. This was achieved through regular meetings of a national Ethiopian Fodder Roundtable at which innovation approaches were presented. At district level we found considerable enthusiasm for scaling out of planted fodder by local extension offices. The scaling out was achieved through conventional government mechanisms rather than through spontaneous adoption and it remains to be seen how sustainable such efforts are and whether they continue beyond the project lifetime. One issue we encountered was the question of what was being scaled out: technologies or innovation approaches. We tended to find that government extension officers were keener on the former and it is too early to say whether we see sustained use of innovation approaches in study districts and beyond.

In Syria, again we saw scaling out of successful technologies at district level but as in Ethiopia it is as yet unclear whether the use of local stakeholder platforms has been taken on by local stakeholders and will persist beyond project life.

Market development

Market development activities varied by country partly because of the different stages of maturity of project efforts in the three locations.

In Ethiopia, the project started by introducing planted forages at district level. Early successes were used to build stakeholder engagement. Towards the end of the project we saw local stakeholders turning attention to marketing issues in at least one of our sites. Thus in Ada’a, by the end of the project local stakeholders were negotiating arrangements for procurement of milk rather than focusing on fodder production issues. In all three countries a similar pattern was observed: using fodder as an entry point but maintaining a strong focus on stakeholder processes led naturally to dealing with bottlenecks further along the value chain.

In Vietnam, this process had reached maturity so that much of the project effort was focused on developing market arrangements with traders, re-orienting production to meet market demands, dealing with credit provision and so on.

In Syria, there was limited work on market development perhaps because livestock production systems are already relatively mature and market linkages for farmers are already well established.

Download the report

 

Fodder Adoption Project Ethiopia: Innovation Platforms from technology focus to actors focus

On September 28, I joined Andre Van Rooyen (ICRISAT) and Ranjitha Puskur (ILRI) in a session on innovation platforms in agricultural research for development at the Rome AgriKnowledge share fair. For my presentation, I used experiences of the ‘Fodder Adoption Project in Ethiopia to illustrate how using the innovation systems approach shifted the focus of the project from animal feeding ‘technologies’ to actors and their emerging needs over time.

More on the Ethiopia project

View the presentation:

 

Is there a formula to work out which feed technologies will work in different contexts?

At the “Techfit” workshop in Dehra Dun this week a group of scientist and development workers were in deep conversation about how to prioritize livestock feed technologies for different situations. Our task was to come up with a framework or tool that could be used by development agencies such as local NGO’s or extension offices. The tool would score technologies and suggest which would work best in a given situation.

We made great progress. At the start of the workshop, many of us wondered if such a tool could be developed. Would it be possible to reduce the complexity of the problem to something simple that could be used by non-specialists? As the week went on, the key components of the framework began to emerge.

First, we agreed that we needed an inventory of possible feed technologies including a score sheet for a range of technology attributes. These attributes would include aspects such as requirements for land and water, labour requirements, need for various inputs, reliance on community organisation, need for credit, complexity of the technology and so on. These attributes would be inherent to the technology and hence would form part of the final tool.

Discussing feed technologies with farmers in Sorna village, Uttarakhand, India as part of Techfit workshop. 21 Nov 2011

Second, we came to a consensus that we also needed to characterize the context in which technologies would be applied. Some of the same attributes would be suitable – things like land and water availability, degree of community cohesion, availability of credit etc. But scores for these attributes would be specific to particular contexts be it the Highlands of Ethiopia or the hill country of Uttarakhand. A key element of the tool will be to find a simple way to gather this information using checklists and quick questionnaires that can be used with farmers and other key actors.

The core of tool will be a way of combining technology and context attributes to arrive at an overall score for how a technology is likely to fit a particular context. The final score will not produce a magic bullet technology but it will help to narrow down the wide range of possible options into a few strong contenders. These can then form the basis for further discussion with farmers and development workers to decide on how they should be tested and tried in practice.

We see Techfit (or whatever we decide to call it) as one element of a wider set of tools that will help to capture some of the expertise of feed and forage specialists and make it available in usable form by development people. These other tools include FEAST (Feed Assessment Tool), SOFT and approaches for participatory technology development.

We will keep posting on Techfit as it develops.

 

Feed and fodder uptake decisions shape technology options available to researchers

In mid-September 2011, ILRI and partners organized a ‘TechFit ‘workshop to ‘develop and test an analytical framework that can be used to collect, structure, screen and prioritise possible feed technologies and interventions from multiple angles – technical, institutional, social and economic’.

To better understand concrete feed technology ‘use cases’ and demands, the first day of the workshop included a question and answer session with five workshop participants. What types of technology questions or demands do they encounter? How do they screen and prioritise technology options? Who decides on technological choices, what criteria are used to rank them, and what is ultimately provided to farm communities?

Panelists Nils Teufel (ILRI India), Ben Lukuyu (ILRI Kenya), Aichi Kitalyi (Tanzania), Yashpal Bisht (Himmothan Foundation), and D. P. Tiwari (Pantnagar University) shared their experiences with Ranjitha Puskur.

Yashpal Bisht set the scene arguing that “farmers don’t ask for a technology … they ask for a solution.” So any tool, approach or framework to improve technology screening and selection must draw heavily on the immediate farmer context. In the areas where Bisht works (Uttarakhand and Himachal in India), for example, the communities will decide themselves on the technologies and interventions they will implement. For a specific technology, they are often quite clear what they want and don’t want – decisions by farmers on uptake are critical steps in the decision matrix being developed.

A lot of the subsequent conversations were about ways that researchers and farmers interact around animal feeding issues. On-farm trials and demonstration plots were repeatedly mentioned as mechanisms to identify, test, validate, and target appropriate technologies with farmers. Still however, Ben Lukuyu emphasized that these approaches help ‘bring’ technologies to farmers … but do we really know how they ‘pick’ the technologies and the criteria they use to select them? Aichi Kitalyi illustrated how technologies can have very unanticipated consequences – a forage plant used for thatching for example.

Nils Teufel added that we can work with farmers, identifying problems needing solutions (through participatory rural assessment, use of a feed assessment tool, etc), and ‘testing’ technologies, but there is still a big question on the criteria and processes used to pre-select and screen likely technologies before the deeper engagement with farmers.

Who decides, and how do we ensure that the results of their decisions are the best possible? Often technology selection choices are informed by past research or other assessment and decisions are taken nationally as part of research priority setting exercises; sometimes individuals or institutions recommend what they have ‘on the shelf.’ The TechFit tool or framework should make these pre-selection technology screening and matching choices more structured, more robust and more relevant.

Beyond the farmers themselves, panelists talked about other strategies they employ to get feed technologies into use. Partners – research, government, developmental – are a key to this and their capabilities, and their interests in, and understanding of, the intended technologies are important determinants of uptake.

They also pointed out that technologies are frequently introduced as part of wider interventions, hence the inter-relations among all of these are an important part of technology ‘choice.’

Technology choices therefore need to match farmers’ contexts, they need to complement other interventions, and they need to be compatible with their partner aspirations and capacities. . .

Moreover, in a subsequent presentation, ILRI’s Steve Staal emphasized that the attributes of the technologies themselves (their land or labor requirements for example) have a bearing on their uptake, while factors in the rural situation – policies, availability of markets and credit, livestock keeping ‘mindset’, and many others – are also critical determinants.

The panelists and the discussions illustrated and extended the justification for the TechFit framework and tool – they also added multiple layers of complexity for the working groups to address today.

View Steve Staal’s presentation:

 

The 4-day Techfit workshop aims to ‘develop and test an analytical framework that can be used to collect, structure, screen and prioritise possible feed technologies and interventions from multiple angles technical, institutional, social and economic’.
http://techfit.wikispaces.com

 

Workshop to Develop a Tool for Feed Technology Screening and Prioritisation 19-22 September 2011, Dehradun, India

Most would agree that feed is a key constraint to improving livestock productivity in smallholder systems. So the development community often attempts to deal with the feed issue through introduction of new ways of feeding animals (technologies). These may include improved forages and dual purpose crops, methods for processing crop residues, or introducing high quality supplementary feeds.

But how do we decide which feed technologies will work and be beneficial to smallholder livestock keepers in specific situations? The decision making process surrounding technologies seems to often be ad hoc and rather narrow. Aspects such as labour availability,  cost-benefit, availability of inputs, aspects of risk, and the  level of knowledge required for successful implementation are often not systematically considered. This has led to increasing distrust and repeated failures.

With all this in mind, next week a group of scientists, development practitioners and representatives of the private sector will meet in Dehra Dun to begin to develop a methodology to help people screen and prioritize feed technologies for different situations.

Why this workshop?

The objective is to develop and field test an analytical framework tool that can be used to: (i) collect (ii) structure (iii) screen and (iv) prioritise possible feed technologies and interventions using a set of general approaches, generic classifications and critical parameters from multiple angles (technical, institutional, policy, social and economic) in various contexts…

The results of the workshop and the field testing will be condensed into a booklet suitable for wider distribution and application. It will contain the justification, the approaches/methodology and some application examples of how the technology prioritisation tool can be used.

The aim is to move beyond a mere concept but rather develop a prototype tool, which can then be tested and further improved in the various upcoming research activities.

You can read more about the rationale for the workshop and the process we intend to use here:

http://techfit.wikispaces.com/

The workshop is hosted by the “Enhancing livelihoods through livestock knowledge systems (ELKS)” project.

 

 

Building local stakeholder networks for livestock development – a case study from Syria

We have been introducing a series of Technical Advisory Notes arising from the IFAD-funded Fodder Adoption Project on this blog. The last of these describes implementation of the project in Syria. Dr Asamoah Larbi (ex of the International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas; ICARDA) writes:

“Feed scarcity prevents small-scale sheep and goat keepers in Syria from taking advantage of the growing market for livestock products to improve their livelihoods, build assets and escape poverty. This is due to poor access to information, credit, appropriate technologies; lack of enabling policies and institutions; and a weak extension system, input delivery services and fodder innovation capacity. The Syrian component of the IFAD-funded Fodder Adoption Project was implemented from 2007 to 2011 by ICARDA, community-based organizations (CBOs), and public and private sector partners to address the constraints. The overall objective of the project was to enhance livelihoods of poor livestock keepers through increased use of fodder.

Activities were implemented at three learning sites – El-Bab, (Aleppo province), Salamieh (Hama province) and Tal-Amri (Homs province). A network of partners led by ICARDA, including the Extension Directorate (ED) and Animal Wealth Resource Administration (AWRA) of the Syrian Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform (MAAR), Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKF), and farmers’ groups ran the activities at each site.

In terms of impacts, innovation capacity of the networks was strengthened through training, and joint learning by cross-site visits and field days. Informal seed systems were promoted to increase quality forage seed supply and farmer-to-farmer seed exchange. Farmers, research and development partners were trained in fodder and forage seed production and management of small ruminants. Appropriate fodder/forage seed production and feeding packages for small-scale lamb fattening and milk production were disseminated to more than 500 households, resulting in increased household forage production, and outputs of milk and meat and incomes.”

Read the full account here.