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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: , , |
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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 video:

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: , |
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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.

View his video:

 

December 8, 2009

Quantifying the tradeoffs between different crop residue uses

Posted by Peter Ballantyne (ILRI) under Crop Residues, Crop-Livestock, LPG | Tags: , , , |
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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.

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See his presentation:

 

December 7, 2009

Crop residue markets in West Africa provide short term gains to farmers

Posted by Peter Ballantyne (ILRI) under Crop-Livestock, LPG | Tags: , , , |
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Reporting on his research project at the December 2009 SLP meeting in Addis Ababa, Tahirou Abdoulaye (IITA) explains:

“What is clearly coming out is the role of market where feed markets, crop residue markets, are emerging … and the immediate benefit is for farmers to give more of their crop residues to their livestock because the other gains, in terms of soil fertility, tend to be more long term oriented, and farmers tend to focus more on the short term gains.”

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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: , , , |
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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.

View his video:

See a related video by Katrien Descheemaeker.

See his presentation:

 

December 3, 2009

Conservation agriculture, livestock and livelihood strategies in the Indo-Gangetic Plains of South Asia

Posted by brugerard under Conservation Agriculture, LPG | Tags: , , , , , |
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During the CGIAR Systemwide Livestock Programme Livestock Policy Group Meeting on 1 December 2009, Olaf Erenstein (CIMMYT) presented the results of work in India.

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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: , , , , |
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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: , , , |
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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 his video:

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: , |
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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.

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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: , , |
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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
 

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