Assessing needs: Forage demands
and feed gaps from dairy and dual
purpose value chains
Ben Lukuyu
Workshop on forage and fodder tree selection for future challenges—Linking
genebanks to forage use, Addis Ababa, 16-20 March 2015

Overview
• Background to dairy production
• Constraints to dairy production
• Major feed resources for dairy and dual purpose
cattle
– What types of feeds are used now in different
countries/regions
– General feed constraints
• Feed gaps in Dairy and Dual Purpose Value chains
• What types of feeds are needed for the future.
– Focus on the role of forages in different production systems
– But also considering some feed production constraints

Beef animal and meat production in Nicaragua
Demand for milk and meat: E.g.
Nicaragua

Constraints to dairy and meat
production
• Inadequate dairy animal nutrition.
• Quantity
• Quality
• Seasonality
• Inadequate management of dairy
animals: husbandry, housing
• Dairy breeds of low productivity
• High prevalence of livestock diseases:
Trypanosomiasis, FMD and CBPP
• All constraints interact

Changes in land use 2004-2012

East Africa: Feeding systems are
changing
Move towards intensive cattle production

What options do we have to double
milk and meat production?
• The choices facing the dairy sector in order to at
least double milk output over the next 10 years
are:
– Increase the number of milking cattle
– Improve the potential of the cattle
– A shift from draught power managed agriculture to
mechanization
– Improve the feed resource

Major feed resources for dairy
and dual purpose cattle

Current feed needs: East Africa
0 20 40 60 80 100
Cut Grass
Maize Stover Green
Weeds
Legume Hay
Maize Stover Dry
Grass Hay
Other Crop By Products
Napier Grass
Uganda Rwanda Kenya
Percentage of households with cattle farms growing and using forages.

Farm level feed resources in
Tanzania
• Pastures
• Crop residues
• Planted forages
• Collected forages

Dry season feed scenarios in small-
holder systems in East Africa
• Crop residues are:
– Are about 20% available, relative to their maximum,
early in the cropping season
– Peak towards 100% at the end of the cropping season
– Decline to about 60% in the post-harvest season.
• Natural pasture supply begins to rise sooner
during the cropping season than crop residues.
– Supply rises from about 30% availability at the
beginning of the cropping season
– Peaks towards 100% towards mid season
– Declines to about 50% during the post-harvest season

Current feed needs: India
Important forage (dry and green) used in Bihar, India
Type of feed - Important items
Dry fodder (89% - of which)
· Wheat straw (40%)
· Paddy straw (55%)
· Pulses straw (2%)
· Maize stover (1%)
· Others (2%)
Green fodder (11% - of which)
· Grasses, rogues and weeds (40%)
· Green fodder (maize, wheat, sorghum) (30%)
· Other cultivated fodder crops (Napier grass, berseem, etc.) (20%)
· Legumes (lathyrus, peas, etc.) (5%)
· Leaves (peppal, banyan, Jackfruit, Madras thorn, bamboo, etc. (5%)
• Source: Singh et al., 2013
• Results show the importance of dry fodder and dominance of wheat and paddy straw, indicating
that cereal food-feed crops dominate agriculture.

Current feed needs: Nicaragua
Crop
Crop yields
(MT)
By-product yields
( MT on DM basis)
ME
content
MJ/ kg DM
Available ME
GJ
Sugarcane tops 7,026,599 772,926 8 6,183,407
Maize 498,000 1,494,000 7.6 11,354,400
Paddy rice 460,000 598,000 5.8 3,468,400
Dry beans 225,575 270,690 6.4 1732,416
Groundnuts with shell 204,285 817,140 7.9 6,455,406
Sorghum 60,000 240,000 7.3 1,752,000
Crop residues
Forage type Description
Grazing (communal/ individual)
Natural herbage occurring from the clearance of natural
forested areas in delicate ecological zones
Improved grasses/legumes
Successful varieties: Alfalfa, Stylosanthes etc. Growing
interest in Brachiaria pastures (accounts for about 1% of the
total area of planted pastures)
Forage legumes, trees and shrubs
Central America is origin of many leguminous trees used
throughout the world.
Type of forages

Current feed needs: Nicaragua (2)
Percentages of farmers adopting different feeding strategies
in the dry season by producer type
Feed type
Small
scale
Medium
scale
Large
scale
Crop residues 66 84 77
Forage trees and shrubs 56 71 77
Cut and carry forages 11 35 62
Grazing - irrigated land 0 24 42
Maize/ sorghum green
forage
78 68 92

Feed constraints in general
• Providing enough feed for cattle or buffaloes is a
real challenge for millions of small-scale farmers
in Africa, Asia and Latin America

Constraints to feed production (1)
• Environmental: climatic, edaphic, biotic factors
– Strong seasonal rainfall distribution leading to dry-
season shortage of feeds
– Amount of soil moisture
– Environmental degradation + destruction
– Climatic variability + change
– In high rainfall areas, forages have low productivity due
to low pH and highly leached soils
– Both low responsive dairy animals and dairy farmer
unknowledgeable of adequate feeding

Constraints to feed production (2)
• Economic
– Lack of market incentives for enhanced feeding
• Political
– Land tenure/land ownership
– Weak or lack of legislation governing grazing - land and
animal feed resources
• Social
– Increase in population (human + livestock)
– Cultural behaviour and attitudes
– Limited association of producers for bulk purchasing
• Technical
– Human resources: limited knowledge + skills

Feed gaps in dairy value chains

Major feed resources constraints & opportunities: Tanzania Dairy Value
Chain
Off farm resources + inputs
Compounded feeds
• Regulations
• Quality control
• Feed Manufacturers
Association
Water
• Technology available
(e.g., water harvesting,
irrigation)
• Access – regulations
• Quality
Feed + fodder markets
• Hay + stover, loose
grass
• Feed-related inputs
(e.g. molasses, urea)
• Machinery
• Agribusiness
opportunities
Forage seed systems
• Informal sector
• Formal sector
• Regulations, quality
control
• Market linkages
Farm level
feed resources
• Pastures/collected
• Crop residues
• Planted forages
• Conserved forages
Seasonality
Political + Social
• Land ownership
• Land use
practices
• Farmers’
attitudes + skills

Feed gaps: Tanzania
• Seasonal feed production
– Temporal fluctuations result in variable quality + quantity of
forages and drinking water
• Inadequate quantity
– Overstocked or degraded
– Lack of dry-season grazing reserve
• Poor quality feeds
– Pastures
– Abundant crop residues
• Limited availability & access to forage seed and
planting materials
• Forages

Planted forages: Napier grass –
the only widely adopted grass
in dairy production
Distribution
from 2010

Feed gaps: Nicaragua
• Inter-year
variations in feed
availability
• Poor quality crop
residues
• Poor pastures
The variability in meat yield per carcass is
probably a reflection of the variability in body
condition due to inter-year variations in feed
availability. (Cajina, 2013)

Feed gaps: India
• Abundant and low quality
crop residues
• Poor utilisation – leading
to high wastage
• Limited planted forages in
the system (depend
mainly on green fodder
from dual purpose crops)

Forages in smallholder systems:
What types of forages/feeds are
needed for the future?

Forages for the future : Seasonality
• Crop residues are important in smallholder
systems but often of poor quality.
– There is increasing need to select/breed food-feed
crops with higher quality fodder traits (green/dry)
– Crops with stay green traits
• Because of earlier pasture growth during the wet
season we need to
– Select for rapid early growth forages to give them
comparative advantage/ maximize use
– Select forages that support higher grazing pressure

Forages for the future: Seasonality
• Irrigated forages are emerging as a result of
strong seasonal effects.
– There will be demand for forages to deal with alkalinity
in highly leached soils
• Forage and feeds that can dramatically reduce
water use
– Water efficient forages (high yield relative to water
input)

Forages for the future: Intensive
systems
• Need for forages that can be grown as intercrops
– hence do not compete for land and labour.
• Crops that are well adapted to intensive farming
i.e. dense planting and thinning; relay cropping
etc.

Forages for the future: Grazing
systems
• Sedentary way of life emerging in extensive
systems:
– Will require high yield planted fodder that are suitable
for grazing and conservation
– Planted fodder that can easily seed or be propagated
vegetatively through splits, etc.

Forages for the future : Diseases
• Disease tolerant varieties
– Head smut disease
– Stunt disease
– And others?

CGIAR is a global partnership that unites organizations engaged in research for a food secure future. The CGIAR
Research Program on Livestock and Fish aims to increase the productivity of small-scale livestock and fish systems
in sustainable ways, making meat, milk and fish more available and affordable across the developing world.
CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish
livestockfish.cgiar.org