How can farmers move from being ‘cattle keepers’ to ‘cattle producers’? A case from Vietnam

Across the developing world, millions of smallholders keep livestock as a means of storing capital and as an insurance against hard times. This is a vital function for livestock – but it is associated with poverty. As demand for livestock products increases and systems become more intensive there are opportunities for subsistence livestock keepers to … Continue reading →

Credit through traders – enabling the poorest to engage in cattle fattening in Vietnam

Lack of cash to purchase inputs is a major barrier to poor livestock keepers escaping poverty. Short-term credit is a potential solution but often local micro-finance institutions are unwilling to offer credit to the poorest due to lack of collateral. This was the situation faced by the poorest livestock keepers in Ea Kar District in … Continue reading →

Forage seed supply in Ethiopia – some thoughts on current status and how it might evolve

Forage seed supply continues to be an important constraint to improving feed resources for livestock in Ethiopia. Last week the Ethiopian Institute for Agricultural Research organized a National Forage Seed Workshop (May 12-14, 2011). There were a number of interesting presentations: what was clear from many of these is that forage development for livestock has … Continue reading →

Ethiopian Fodder Roundtable considers promising feed technologies for the dairy sector

The Ethiopian Fodder Roundtable has been a useful forum for sharing ideas around feed development for livestock in Ethiopia. In late January we met to discuss a study commissioned by SNV Ethiopia which identified some promising feeding practices and technologies for dairy production in Ethiopia. Solomon Mogus set the scene with a presentation giving highlights … Continue reading →

Overview

Livestock feeds in the developing world come from a range of sources including crop residues, planted forages, agro-industrial by-products, grazing and others. Improved feeding comes from producing more feed, improving feed quality, or smoothing seasonal imbalances in feed supply. Continue reading →

State of the World on Why Uptake of New Livestock Feeding Practices Is So Slow

The Worldwatch Institute recently published their annual State of the World: ‘Innovations That Nourish the Planet’. This year’s synthesis is the result of an 18-month exercise to catalogue innovations to enhance food security in Africa. I met Danielle Nierenberg, who spearheaded the work, during her year-long sojourn in Africa. She visited the Ethiopian campus of … Continue reading →

Scaling out project outcomes requires a ‘special chemistry’

After a session of the the November 2010 Fodder Adoption Project (FAP) workshop in Laos, we recorded ‘notes’ of three world cafe hosts who collated cross-project lessons (from Ethiopia, Syria, and Vietnam) on three issues: Innovation approaches, feed assessment, and scaling out. In this video, Werner Stür, formerly with CIAT in Vietnam, reports back on … Continue reading →

Feed a key issue to manage livestock systems in transition

After a session of the the November 2010 Fodder Adoption Project (FAP) workshop in Laos, we recorded ‘notes’ of three world cafe hosts who collated cross-project lessons (from Ethiopia, Syria, and Vietnam) on three issues: Innovation approaches, feed assessment, and scaling out. In this video, Michael Blümmel of ILRI reports back on the discussions about … Continue reading →

Synthesizing the feed in smallholder systems symposium

Keith Sones writes… As part of my support to the FAP end-of-project meeting I was asked to synthesise the outputs of the one-day mini symposium on ‘feeds in smallholder systems‘, held on 18 November as part of the wider meeting. The process for the mini symposium was innovative and useful (and one I plan to … Continue reading →

Innovation, feed assessment and scaling out – the keys to fodder development?

Today we had a session to try and distil some cross-cutting findings from FAP, thinking specifically about Innovation, Feed Assessment and Scaling out issues. Here I highlight one key point I took from each session Ranjitha Puskur led the session on innovation: we spoke about the challenges of embedding innovation approaches within national systems. Taking … Continue reading →