Presented by Bedasa Eba at the Nile Basin Development Challenge (NBDC) Science Workshop, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 9–10 July 2013

1. Effect of Current Livestock Feed Sourcing and Feeding Strategies on
Livestock Water Productivity in Mixed Crop-livestock Systems of the Blue
Nile Basin Highlands of Ethiopia
Nile Basin Development Challenge (NBDC) Science Workshop,
9-10 July, 2013, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Bedasa Eba

2. Introduction
 For decades-long, exploitation of land, leading to competition over land and
water, and thus leads to water scarcity in Blue Nile Basin (WFP, 2007).
 Highly populated by people and livestock (27.6 TLU/ km2 )
 In BNB rain water lost as:
 Unproductive run off, evaporative losses, and high volume of water
required for livestock production (Descheemaeker et.al, 2010)

3. Introduction cont’d
• High volumes of water withdrawn for production of feed (Steinfeld
et al., 2006); affected by
• Ways feed is produced and supplied to the animal
• Dry matter (DM) productivity and feed quality
• Contact between livestock and the environment
• Temporal and spatial availability of feed and water resources

4. Introduction cont’d
• So, understanding the farming systems’ and landscape’ feed
sourcing and feeding strategies in the Highlands of BNB, leads
to;
• Generating baseline information in this area and link to
improve LWP
• Serve as a reference point to explore different water efficient
feed sourcing and feeding practices.

5. Objectives
• To identify the different livestock feed sourcing and feeding
strategies in mixed crop livestock systems of the BNB
• To assess the effects of current feeding systems on
livestock water productivity

6. 2. Materials and methods
Area description
Jeldu Woreda
FogeraWoreda
Diga Woreda
Dapo
watershed
Mizuwa watershed
Meja watershed

7. Stratification and Household Survey
67 hh in Diga
• Multistage stratified sampling and 2 PA for each system
• Also stratified by wealth categories (4-6 hh per clustered )
220 hh in BNB
91 hh in Jeldu 62 hh in Fogera
35 hh in
teff-millet
32 hh in maize-
sorghum 31 hh in
Barley-
potato
30 hh in
teff-
wheat
30 hh in
teff-
sorghum
32 hh
in
teff-
millet
30 hh in
rice-
pulse

8. Livestock Water Productivity Estimation
• LWP as defined earlier, is based on the ratio of livestock
beneficial outputs and services to depleted water through
feed production
• LWPji = (MYVji+OTVji+TVOSji+TMVji)/DWLFji
Milk
value
Off take
value
Service
value
Manure
value
Water
depleted to
feed

9. Feed Resource Assessment
• Sampling of biomass
• Harvest index approaches
• Annual DM yield for communal and stubble

10. Estimation of Water Depleted in Producing Livestock Feed
• New LocClim (FAO, 2005)
• Using CROPWAT 8.0 software (FAO, 2003)
• ETci= ETo*Kci*LGPij (general water depleted)

11. Beneficial output estimation

12. Results and Discussion
Landholding and livestock holding (TLU)
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
TMS MSS BPS TWS TSS TMMS RPS
Diga Jeldu Fogera
TLUorha
Mean Landholding (ha)
Mean Livestock (in TLU)
Landholding (ha) and
livestock (in TLU) variation
among Jeldu systems
Lower landholding (ha)
in Fogera systems

13. Variability of Feed Resources Availability and Ingredients Across the
Study Systems
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
TMS MSS BPS TWS TSS TMMS RPS
%ofDrymatter
Farming systems
crop residues(%) on
DM basis
Natural pasture(%)
on DM basis
Aftermath grazing
(%) on DM basis

14. DM yield and grass-legume composition on private grazing lands
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
TMS MSS BPS TWS TSS TMMS RPS
Diga Jeldu Fogera
DM(ton)
Grasses DM (t/ha)
Legumes DM (t/ha)
• In Fogera as much as 10.8 ton/ha (Ashagre, 2008) from improved natural pasture.
• By closing yield gaps as high as 100% improvement in LWP is reported for mixed crop
livestock systems of India (Haileslassie et al., 2011).

15. Improved forages production and feed supplementation
• Almost no practice improved forages production ( about 85%)
• No feed supplementation practice particularly with sources outside their
farm (e.g., bran, oil cake)
• Storages of crop residues better in Jeldu and Fogera but lower Diga
• About 74.2%-95% of respondents were not used chemical and/or physical
treatment on crop residues

16. Feeding systems
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
TMS MSS BPS TWS TSS TMMS RPS
%ofrespondents
Garzing of natural pasture
Tethering on natural pasture
crop residues of In situ grazing
crop residues off situ feeding
Only tethering in Diga In situ grazing of crop residues

17. Livestock Water Productivity
Woreda Farming
systems
N $ m-3)
Mean±SE Min Max
Diga TMS 35 0.19±0.02 0.001 0.48
MSS 32 0.16±0.02 0.021 0.38
Mean 67 0.17±0.01
Jeldu BPS 31 0.15±0.02 0.002 0.63
TWS 30 0.16±0.01 0.001 0.43
TSS 30 0.16±0.02 0.027 0.37
Mean 91 0.16±0.01
Fogera TMMS 32 0.18±0.01 0.07 0.35
RPS 30 0.15±0.02 0.01 0.30
Mean 62 0.16±0.01
• No apparent difference between systems (beneficial output)
• Huge gap between minimum and maximum of LWP value

18. Livestock Water Productivity…
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
TMS MSS BPS TWS TSS TMMS RPS
Diga Jeldu Fogera
LWP(US$-3)
Farming systems within each Woreda
Better
off
Medium
Poor
• High LWP for
better off
lower LWP
for poor

19. Conclusion and recommendation
• In all of the study farming systems, crop residues constitute the major
ingredient of livestock diet and supplementary feeding with high value
feed is not commonly practiced and livestock feed scarcity is considerable.
Hence;
• Improving water productivity of feed is major entry points to improve LWP
areas
• The farm scale showed a very wide range between the resources poor and
better off farmers. Such big gap of LWP for farm households operating in
the same farming system suggests a potential for improvements.

20. Thank you!!
THANK YOU!