I am not convinced about using ‘improved forages’ in traditional rangeland systems. These systems are the centres of diversity for forage grasses and the ecotypes that are already there are well adapted through centuries of natural selection. A better approach could be as Lance proposed to make use of social structures to allow the natural vegetation to recover and improve the management of what is already there. Improved forages may be more suitable for crop-livestock systems than ASAL.

I think if Steve Staal were commenting he would raise Napier as one of THE answers to the future of feed.

I remember tryps molecular biologist Noel Murphy saying years ago that a small team forced them to be really, really smart, and to play really smart with others. I assume that the smaller team you are, the more you need to communicate, whether in person, in publications, in social media, and that communications can offer a way to ‘punch way above your weight’. Jean has done a handsome job of demonstrating this over the years!

With regards collaborations with LSE, you highlight NRM and climate-smart agriculture as ripe areas for collaborative targets. Building on the idea note posted by Polly on “Linking forage management to value chains” I believe there is a lot more than just NRM and climate-smart agriculture that such an initiative can benefit from in the context of the work and capabilities of the FFB program. Certainly we should leverage traditional knowledge but the ASALs are also ripe for testing out new technologies in improved feeds and forages (that can be identified by applying the range of cutting edge genomic tools in your arsenal), and how to link these within an catalytic market system. There are a number of dynamics that makes such investments particularly appropriate at this stage – particularly in the Horn of Africa (which I have a better sense of); improved technologies for identifying and accessing ground water, increasing commercial activity around livestock trade, improved market access and performance, penetration of financial services with access to cheaper capital. Couple this with the fact that ASAL herds have among the highest gap between current and potential productivity and such a collaboration seems to be make very good sense and have high potential for leveraging good science for impact.

Research on feed and forage in arid, semi-arid and degraded rangeland systems would need to pay close attention to the social context and delivery mechanisms. Lots of questions around how to make it happen, including the existence of a classic collective action problem: when the pastures are not privately owned and the benefits of investment in rehabilitation will be captured by herders at large, who will have the incentive or the ability to do the rehabilitation. In Kenya, for example, this might be undertaken by the new conservancies that are coming up.

Technical questions around which forage species have which needs and which benefits could be wrapped up in a nice research package with social science questions around the feasibility of implementation.

Totally agree. We had lots of discussion in our face to face in Addis about how biosciences should be linked better to integrated sciences and how if we are not careful we end up in silos so the upstream science is not addressing the real problems at farm level. So while I could say that the broader feeds agenda is in ASSP, this is not the answer if we are to deliver on ILRI goals. Let’s think about the question from Peter above on how to move to a more integrated programme structure.

And of course, we have often spoken not just of the accessions themselves that may fit well in a ‘climate smart’ context but the GENES within some of them – like the grasses that Jean mentions. This could be something new and exciting for the molecular aspects of the program I imagine?