Summary – ASSP

• Summary of comments on presentations from Animal Science for Sustainable Productivity (ASSP)
  

  Many thanks to all for the interesting comments that people sent to the ASSP Program Leader’s and Scientists presentations. We have grouped and summarized them as follows:

  1. A number of contributions noted that one of ASSP’s strengths is in considering all of feeds, breeds, and health in an integrated way (even if the animal breeders are now located in Animal Bioscience). Some suggested that the breeding side should go back to ASSP, or at least place 1 contact person with a foot on the ground. The integration is seen as a basis for promoting inter-disciplinarity across ILRI programs. There were also suggestions that animal management should be added to this mix as this is what puts all the pieces together. This is an area that we will be giving prominence in the coming years, especially as we grow the herd health initiative.
  2.  On Sustainable Intensification; How does the development of Sustainable Intensification indicators help ASSP’s work? Who is demanding such indicators? Should we not treat Sustainable Intensification as a hypothesis? LSE could certainly help here, with their experience in indicators for resilience and for climate smart agriculture. ASSP and LSE should collaborate on this idea, and together demonstrate where SI is possible and where it is not. A roundtable discussion is planned with Polly convening.
  3.  Cross-fertilization between ASSP’s feeds and forages work, low-emissions feed and fodder practices in the Mazingira Lab; and the feed analysis lab in Addis Ababa. Other collaboration with LSE was identified including: putting technologies in a social context through integrating the analysis of the institutional and governance dimensions of changes in feeds & forages regimes; not just for understanding impact, but at the level of basic research.
  4.  As most ASSP work is applied animal science, integration with Capacity Development becomes very important if we are to have impact through radio, videos etc. ASSP should collaborate with capacity development here.
  5.  There are many possibilities for increased collaboration with FSZ on animal health, and economic impact, especially for zoonotics and aflatoxins. There is potential to work also with the feeds group and Africa Rising on aflatoxins. Can you say something more regarding the development of SI/Sustainable Intensification Indicators (I assume SII?)? Is the work only starting, or do you have some more exciting information to share?
  6. Livestock Master Plan communications should be enlarged, highlighting Ethiopian agencies. This is a great opportunity to acknowledge Ethiopia’s NARS, and build closer relationships. We could do a series on this by unpacking the plan for different sectors and audiences, giving prominence to Ethiopian agencies. It was proposed to discuss this with James Stapleton when he arrives in Addis to develop products and activities that highlight the master plan.

  A question was posed on the feeds and forages work. In ILRI’s feeds and forages research, what belongs where (and why)? Feed and forage work is spread across ASSP, FFB, BecA-ILRI Hub, Mazingira Lab, and the Genebank CRP. It is time to unpack this.

  We are not strong on animal welfare, and are only involved in the welfare of experimental animals. We should examine broader animal welfare issues such as the implications of livestock intensification on animal welfare. For instance, we might lead the development of minimum standards for housing or treatment of draft animals. We have been approached by other institutions to be involved in this area of research.

  Summary of comments on Peter Thorne’s Sustainable Intensification presentation

  The discussion on the sustainable intensification presentation was diverse, probably reflecting the diversity of the issues that these projects have to deal with. Some key points were:

  • Defining and measuring sustainability and sustainable intensification. Comments highlighted the range of thinking and lack of consensus that we have. Definitions vary and are either insufficiently generic (mostly focusing on cropping systems) or difficult to interpret at a household, community or even landscape scale. The issue of indicators that go beyond the biophysical was raised. Africa RISING has been aware of this when developing its indicator framework (and this remains work in progress). ILRI has a technology platform that might be adapted for operationalizing our indicator framework in the field. There are exciting possibility provided that we move forward together.
  • Livestock waste. Minimising waste from livestock production systems is important. Intensification works to increase system efficiency and this can also be achieved by better input and loss management, as well as by increasing production.
  • GHG emissions from intensifying systems. We have little evidence as to the benefits of systems intensification on GHG emissions other than the assumption that more efficient systems are more climate-smart. Project’s like Africa RISING could offer an opportunity to generate concrete data here.
  • Intra household issues. Not everyone in a household is equally affected by intensification. We account for this amongst households by the use of typologies and within households in terms of gender an youth. There may be opportunities for some projects to more explicitly address intra household variability as farming systems practiced evolve.

  We identified concrete opportunities to collaborate with LSE and RMG on sustainability indicator frameworks and on the implications of intensification trajectories of smallholder systems for GHG emissions.

  Summary of comments on Alan Duncan Participatory Tools presentation

  Most comments posed two questions:

  • Can FEAST be modified to do other things?
  • Can the FEAST approach be applied to other sectors such as health or breeding?

  The answer to both questions is yes with some caveats. For tools like FEAST, there is always a trade-off between (1) making them try to do everything and (2) making them too cumbersome to be useful. FEAST has been refined over a period of years and its size and scope is probably optimal for the job at hand. The FEAST/Techfit approach is relevant to other sectors and its ideas are being incorporated into another tool called Legume CHOICE which focuses on multi-purpose legumes in smallholder systems. Modifying FEAST to deal with pastoral systems could have mileage but it might be more efficient to develop a different tool using the same principles.

  On the data generated by FEAST, there was some agreement that harvesting and using data for other purposes could be useful. Mechanisms for this are already well advanced.

  “What Next?” FEAST is good for quick diagnosis but needs to be combined with other approaches including Techfit and Participatory Technology Development to turn talk into action. Suggestions for this are contained within the new FEAST Learning Materials being developed by CapDev.

  There were a few queries around farmer selection and particularly the need to have a good balance between women and men among respondents, particularly as feeding is often handled by women.

   

  Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)