Tagline: Linking forage management to value chains
Champion: Polly Ericksen
Team: Andrew Mude, ASSP, Feed Forage Bios, PTVC.
Producing innovation solutions to the perplexing puzzle of linking forage management to livestock value chains in drylands
Extensive livestock production systems have developed to optimise livestock access to forage, with herders using mobility as the primary means of ensuring their animals have enough to eat, and also that grazing area is not degraded. Although extensive livestock producers have always relied on markets, and indeed are responsible for supplying thriving domestic and international markets within Africa, fodder/ forage scarcity remains a constraint to commercialising these livestock value chains. It is particularly a constraint for poorer producers, who lack the capital to purchase fodder, or who must take their animals far away from markets on foot, and hence cannot sell easily when prices are high. There has been almost no work on innovative models for community managed forage areas or fodder production; nor has much been done to evaluate how to link fodder markets with livestock markets in these extensive systems. Finally, there seems to be very little in the way of technical expertise about re-seeding degraded range areas or introducing improved forages. The demand is huge! What is ILRI's response?
29 Comments