Forages and the gradual shift towards
more intensive management
Alan Robertson
Consultant
Workshop on forage and fodder tree selection for future challenges —Linking
genebanks to forage use, Addis Ababa, 16-20 March 2015

Need programs across the spectrum

General thrust
• Support for intensification of livestock
production
• Shift towards more grazing control, stall
feeding
• Conspicuous benefits = high uptake rates
(can only solve the problems with a high
degree of spontaneous lateral spread)

• Widely diverse, scattered sites from the
beginning
• Many (diverse) farmers from the beginning
• Farmers - forefront of screening/ promotion
• Diverse development strategies
• World-class genetic material
• Quick start
• Flexibility

Strategies
• Broad array
• Intensive and extensive
• All setting the stage for gradual intensification
of livestock production

Intensive rainfed or irrigated:
both need emphasis on high quality
i.e. shift away from Napier

Forage as a smallholder cash crop
Role for manual baler

Irrigated forages
• Smallholder and commercial
• Irrigated lucerne !!!
• Other irrigation potential
– Mulato II + legume
– Guinea + legume
– Leucaena
– Desmanthus

Cover cropping

Annual forage crops and relay cropping

Push- pull
Stem-borer, striga, Parthenium

Protection of crop land

Forages and weed control

Reinforcement of stock exclosures

Desmanthus spp

Oversowing
(broadcasting legume seed e.g. 0.5 - 1kg/ha)

Seeding 2,000ha per trip ?

Environmental diversity
(Need wide array of genetic material)

Genetic material
Should Ethiopian farmers have access to
the best genetic material available ??

Need productive, high quality forages
(milk and fattening)

And
Genetic material for marginal areas,
stock exclusion areas, etc

Forage Arachis
(perennial)

American jointvetch

Desmanthus leptophyllus

Greenleaf Desmodium

Mulato II

Leucaena
Australia: 1.4kg/hd/day

Need to emphasise species/strategies with
potential for spontaneous adoption

Screening approaches
• Research stations ?
• FTCs ?
• Woreda nurseries ?
• Farmers’ fields, exclusion areas etc

Requires time to show potential Livestock performance !

Multiplication
(major demand and the funding to support it)
but seed production is very complicated!!

Need to define target species
• Commercial livestock
• Meeting needs of poor smallholders
• Stock exclusion/ communal grazing areas
• Pastoralist areas

Indicative Capacity within 5 years
(tonnes / annum)
Capacity
Grass seed 20 Absolute quality control
Grass - vegetative Unlimited Scattered sites
Legumes - vegetative Unlimited Scattered sites
Common Annual legumes Unlimited Shift from subsidy
Herbaceous legumes (stylos,
Desmanthus etc)
400 Carefully selected areas
Jointvetch 400 Opportunistic harvest
Climbing legumes (e.g. for
exclusion areas)
200 Carefully selected areas
Tree legumes 1000 Opportunistic harvest
Wynn Cassia etc ? Import

Production systems
• Institutional farms? (FTCs?)
• Larger commercial farms
• Smallholder farms ***********
• Specific seed production areas ? or
• Opportunistic harvesting ?

Can smallholders produce quality seed
efficiently ?
Stylosanthes hamata cv Verano Kg/ha
Australian Commercial,
mechanised 300 - 400
Thai research 400 incr to 600
Thai smallholder 800 – 1200 (export quality)
(Still smallholders after 35 years)

Smallholder forage seed production
Thailand (since 1976) Capacity for
1000 t perennial legume seed
500 t grass seed
India (Ananthapur) 1000 t Stylosanthes hamata
p.a.
Hirna (1988) 2,000 kg Siratro *** from 2ha
Robit, Gojam (1991) 50 tonnes Stylosanthes
hamata *****
(400-800kg/ha)
Ethiopia (1980s) 20 tonnes Leucaena p.a. @
EB1/kg

Smallholder production systems
• Select areas suited to efficient seed
production !! (Generally, head north !)
• Clusters of farmers
• Very close supervision
• Firm contracts

The Thai Model
• Very long term institutional support (govt and
bilateral).. Strong technical support
• Big volumes as soon as possible
• Gradual private sector involvement
• Very close supervision of contract farmers (2,000)
• Absolute attention to quality from beginning
• Reliability /credibility
• Rapid adoption/ promotion of new material
• Immediate attention to emerging export
potential

Thai seed (smallholder contract)
Production is constrained only by the
market !!
Germ
%
Purity
%
Farm gate
EB/kg
Selling
EB/kg
Productn
Capacity
(t / a)
Stylos 99 98 65 160 1000 Match production to
expected market
Mulato II 90 99 140 280 300 Match production to
expected market

Determining pricing
• Volume of demand ?
• Likely yields
• Labor requirements
• Need for supervision ?
• Returns from alternative crops
• Need some flexibility, but…very difficult to
reduce contract prices

Indicative contract prices
Leucaena EB 5 /kg ***
Per.herb. Legumes (Stylos, Desmanthus) EB 50 /kg
Jointvetch (Aeschynomene spp) EB 20 /kg **
Climbing per. Legumes (axillaris etc) EB 50 /kg
Grass- vegetative EB 400 / pick-up load ??
Legumes - vegetative, stripped of leaves EB 600/pick-up load
*** Difficult to reduce contract prices significantly
*** High prices will make large-scale sowing untenable.

Alfalfa seed
EB / kg
Ethiopia farm gate price 350 Unknown genetics ??
Ethiopia sale price 500-550
Australia farm gate price 55 Known genetics, cultivars
for specific locations,
constantly upgraded
Australia sale price 130

Seed or vegetative?

Rhodes grass establishment
EB /
kg
Rec. seeding
rate (kg/ha)
Planting matl
Cost / ha
Eth. commercial 350 6 - 8 2100 - 2800 Slow, unreliable
establishment
Aust. commercial 300 1-2 300-600
Vegetative
establishment
6person days/ha
480 Reliable establishment,
cutting within 6 weeks.

Vegetative multiplication
All grasses for smallholders Many legumes

Small back-yard nurseries (pre-season)
and transplanting at beginning of rains

Very wide scattering of sites (on-farm,
FTCs, stock market centres, schools)
Free or local barter/ payment Planting-out when season is right

Leucaena nursery
(inoculated, bare-root / bare-stem)

Spontaneous spread through livestock
(Don’t always need long-term seed supply)

FTC’s demonstration or multiplication
value ?

Aiming at spontaneous adoption
We don’t want to be distributing planting material forever!
(need conspicuously useful species)

Many delivery options
Try them all !!

Schools forage program
(for 3-4 superior species)
Highly cost-effective Very wide, quick coverage