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 … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

Building on local pockets of success: Some lessons on the process of up-scaling fodder and cattle development in Vietnam

Development projects can often point to local pockets of success: examples of where a project has had real impact on smallholder livelihoods through some successful interventions. However the real challenge comes in taking such success to scale – this involves somehow embedding the processes that led to success into the ways of working of local … Continue reading →

Planted forage as an entry point to catalyse stakeholder action on broader livestock value chain issues – experiences from Ethiopia

Feed scarcity in smallholder systems is a key constraint to improved livestock production in developing countries. However, development efforts which have taken a narrow technology-focused approach to dealing with feed scarcity have had limited success. In the Fodder Adoption Project, we experimented with the use of local stakeholder forums in our sites in Ethiopia to … Continue reading →

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 →

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 →

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 →

Fodder favourites …

This week, we were brainstorming – over dinner – with a group of livestock/feed enthusiasts attending the final meeting of the Fodder Adoption Project. How might we mobilize the scattered expertise and enthusiasms of forage and fodder (and related crop and livestock)  people in the CGIAR and worldwide to focus attention on livestock feeding as … 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 →