Documents related to the consultation can be found on the FAO web site.
BriefSummary-Theme2-15-02-10Preview
Crop Residues
Archived Posts from this Category
February 16, 2010
International Consultation on Integrated Crop-Livestock Systems for Development – Summary of week 2
Posted by brugerard under Conservation Agriculture, Crop Residues, Crop-Livestock, FAO, NewsLeave a Comment
December 24, 2009
New journal article on the spread of conservation agriculture by Kassam et al.
Posted by brugerard under Conservation Agriculture, Crop Residues, NewsLeave a Comment
The spread of Conservation Agriculture: Justification, sustainability and uptake
Amir Kassam, Theodor Friedrich, Francis Shaxson and Jules Pretty
Abstract
Conservation Agriculture (CA) has been practised for three decades and has spread widely.We estimate that there arenow some 106 million ha of arable and permanent crops grown without tillage in CA systems, corresponding to an annual rate of increase globally since 1990 of 5.3 million ha. Wherever CA has been adopted it appears to have had both agricultural and environmental benefits. Yet CA represents a fundamental change in production system thinking. It has counterintuitive and often unrecognized elements that promote soil health, productive capacity and ecosystem services. The practice of CA thus requires a deeper understanding of its ecological underpinnings in order to manage its various elements for sustainable intensification, where the aim is to optimize resource use and protect or enhance ecosystem processes in space and time over the long term. For these reasons CA is knowledge-intensive. CA constitutes principles and practices that can make a major contribution to sustainable production intensification. This, the first of two papers, presents the justification for CA as a system capable of building sustainability into agricultural production systems. It discusses some of CA’s major achievable benefits, and presents an overview of the uptake of CA
worldwide to 2009. The related paper elaborates the necessary conditions for the spread of CA.
December 10, 2009
En Afrique de l’Ouest la commercialisation des résidus de culture procure des rentrées financières
Posted by Peter Ballantyne (ILRI) under Animal Feeding, Crop Residues, Crop-Livestock, LPG | Tags: IITA, LPG2009, West Africa |Leave a Comment
Tahirou Abdoulaye, socio-économiste l’IITA, a expliqué durant sa participation à la réunion du Systemwide Livestock Programme d’Addis Ababa : “Une évolution claire dans la régions est le développement rapide des marchés et l’émergence des marchés pour les aliments du bétail, concernant principalement les résidus de culture… ces marchés procurent un bénéfice immédiat pour les agriculteurs. L’utilisation des résidus pour l’alimentation du bétails entre en compétition avec un bénéfice à plus long terme qui concerne la conservation de la productivité des sols. Les agriculteurs ont naturellement tendance a favoriser les bénéfices à court terme.”
Voir sa presentation :
December 9, 2009
Understanding the drivers behind increased use of crop residues in Southern Africa
Posted by Peter Ballantyne (ILRI) under Crop Residues, Crop-Livestock, LPG | Tags: ICRISAT, Southern Africa |Leave a Comment
Reflecting on the December 2009 SLP meeting in Addis Ababa, Andre Van Rooyen (ICRISAT) outlines why ICRISAT is interested in this project:
“Our interest in the SLP project is to understand the main drivers behind increased use of crop residues and at what point will farmers begin to buy and sell them.”
He sees the project playing an important role to hep ICRISAT in Southern Africa position itself to better serve farmer needs in the future.
December 8, 2009
Quantifying the tradeoffs between different crop residue uses
Posted by Peter Ballantyne (ILRI) under Crop Residues, Crop-Livestock, LPG | Tags: LPG2009, Modelling, tradeoffs, WUR |Leave a Comment
During the December 2009 SLP meeting in Addis Ababa, Mark van Wijk (WUR) and colleagues presented some modelling work that could help quantify the tradeoffs between uses of crop residues – either incorporated in the soil to maintain soil fertility or fed to cattle.
He emphasizes that the models help to quantify the consequences – ‘what if’ – of different decisions or strategies.
See his presentation:
December 6, 2009
Livestock water productivity – integrated approaches to crops and livestock and integrated policies are needed
Posted by Peter Ballantyne (ILRI) under Crop Residues, Livestock-Water, LPG | Tags: Africa, IWMI, LPG2009, tradeoffs |Leave a Comment
Speaking at the December 2009 SLP meeting in Addis Ababa, Tilahun Amede (ILRI/IWMI) argues that livestock, although both a major source of livelihoods and user of water, are overlooked in policy-making on water productivity.
This IWMI/ILRI research project in Ethiopia and Zimbabwe aims to understand the dynamics – and the strategies – that can improve water and livestock productivity, while minimizing land degradation.
He shares three lessons emerging: First, that we need to improve the integration of crop and livestock; second, we meed to move policies from sectoral to integrated ones; and third, we need to ensure that the many useful technologies that exist actually reach the farmers.
See a related video by Katrien Descheemaeker.
See his presentation:
December 2, 2009
Improving the value of maize as a livestock feed in East Africa
Posted by Peter Ballantyne (ILRI) under Animal Feeding, Crop Residues, Crop-Livestock, LPG | Tags: CIMMYT, East Africa, LPG2009, Maize, tradeoffs |Leave a Comment
On 1 December 2009, Dennis Friesen (CIMMYT) presented CIMMYT work on maize as a livestock feed to the CGIAR Systemwide Livestock Programme Livestock Policy Group Meeting.
The starting point of the research was the recognition that maize stover (residues) is important as livestock feed in Eastern Africa, however, stover traits are not an important priority in maize breeding. The project sought to:
- understand the influence of livestock related factors on farmers choice of maize cultivars.
- identify superior dual-purpose maize cultivars from existing maize germplasm for diverse agro-ecological zones.
- define opportunities and strategies for further genetic enhancement towards dual-purpose maize.
- develop new tools for quick and economical on-field assessments of stover fodder value in crop improvement work.
- propose additional selection criteria for variety releasing agents that take into consideration stover quality
As conclusions, he presented 4 ‘principles’:
- Current release criteria with focus on grain remain important
- Stover traits are additional criteria not substituting criteria
- Go for win-win situations
- Facilitate optimization of whole plant utilization (also beyond fodder)
See his presentation:
December 1, 2009
From ‘no-win’ to ‘win-win’ – managing the tradeoffs between forages as feeds or for soil improvement
Posted by Peter Ballantyne (ILRI) under Animal Feeding, Crop Residues, Crop-Livestock, LPG | Tags: Central America, CIAT, LPG2009, tradeoffs |Leave a Comment
Speaking at the December 2009 SLP meeting in Addis Ababa, Michael Peters (CIAT), introduced a project in Nicaragua to study tradeoffs between using specific forage plants either as feeds for animals or for soil improvement and soil fertility maintenance.
The project explores three issues: feed for cows, soil fertility, and longer term sustainability. The aim of the research is for the farmer to go from a “no-win to a win-win situation.”
Peters emphasizes that the farmers themselves are aware of the tradeoffs and will sometimes aim for a production effect (for cattle), and at other times for an environmental effect (on their soils).
One interesting dimension is that “we as researchers have to caution sometimes the farmers not to be too enthusiastic” about the new technology they co-created…
See the presentation:
December 1, 2009
Tradeoffs between uses of crop residues a focus for SLP policy discussions
Posted by Peter Ballantyne (ILRI) under Crop Residues, Crop-Livestock, LPG, Meetings, News | Tags: LPG2009, tradeoffs |Leave a Comment
Bruno Gerard, Coordinator of the CGIAR Systemwide Livestock Programme (SLP) introduces the SLP and a major topic of discussion at the December 2009 meeting of its Livestock Programme Group: Researching tradeoffs between the uses of residues for livestock and for soil improvement.
The meeting is “very much on pressure on biomass use in systems.” It looks especially at tradeoffs in the use of crop residues – they can be used to feed livestock, or to sustain soils and prevent erosion. It concerns choices in investment between the immediate return of using residues to feed livestock and longer term sustainability returns.
November 26, 2009
Open door session of the LPG meeting 1st Dec 09
Posted by brugerard under Crop Residues, Crop-Livestock, LPG, Meetings, News | Tags: LPG, LPG2009, tradeoffs |[2] Comments
Venue: ILRI-Addis Info Center
| 11:00 | Improving Water Productivity of Crop-Livestock Systems of Sub-Saharan Africa [presentation] | T. Amede |
| 11:30 | Improving the value of maize as livestock feed to enhance the livelihoods of maize-livestock farmers in East Africa [presentation] | D. Friesen |
| 12:00 | Lessons learnt from feed innovation approaches. Experiences from IFAD/FAP and DFID/FIP projects [presentation] | A.Duncan and R. Puskur |
| 12:30 | Realizing the benefits of cover crop legumes in smallholder crop-livestock systems of the hillsides of Central America: Trade-off analysis of using legumes for soil enhancing or as animal feed resource [presentation] |
M. Peters |
| 13:00 | Lunch | |
| 14:00 | Conservation agriculture, livestock and livelihood strategies in the Indo-Gangetic Plains of South Asia: Synergies and tradeoffs [presentation] | O. Erenstein |
| 14:30 | Balancing Livestock Needs and Soil Conservation: Assessment of Opportunities in Intensifying Cereal-Legume-Livestock Systems in West Africa [presentation] | T. Abdoulaye |
| 15:00 | Modeling approaches to address crop-residue tradeoffs in mixed crop-livestock systems [presentation] | M. van Wijk, M. Rufino and L. Claessens |
| 15:30 | Coffee Break | |
| 16:00 | Harmonization of the regional case studies and research plans, gaps and needs for enlarging partnerships and synergies | O. Erenstein, S. Homann, T. Abdoulaye, T. Amede, B. Gérard |
| 16:45 | Discussions | |
| 17:30 | End of Day 1 |
Systemwide Livestock Programme 