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

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)

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• High volumes of water withdrawn for production of feed (Steinfeld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

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.

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

2. Materials and methods Area description

Jeldu Woreda

Fogera Woreda

Diga Woreda

Dapo watershed

Mizuwa watershed

Meja watershed

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

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

Feed Resource Assessment

• Sampling of biomass

• Harvest index approaches

• Annual DM yield for communal and stubble

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)

Beneficial output estimation

•

Results and Discussion

Landholding and livestock holding (TLU)

TMS MSS BPS TWS TSS TMMS RPSDiga Jeldu Fogera

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Mean Landholding (ha)

Mean Livestock (in TLU)

TLU

or h

a

Landholding (ha) and livestock (in TLU) variation among Jeldu systems

Lower landholding (ha) in Fogera systems

Variability of Feed Resources Availability and Ingredients Across the

Study Systems

TMS MSS BPS TWS TSS TMMS RPS0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

crop residues(%) on DM basis

Natural pasture(%) on DM basis

Aftermath grazing (%) on DM basis

Farming systems

% o

f Dry

matt

er

DM yield and grass-legume composition on private grazing lands

TMS MSS BPS TWS TSS TMMS RPSDiga Jeldu Fogera

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

Grasses DM (t/ha)

Legumes DM (t/ha)DM

(ton

)

• 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).

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

Feeding systems

TMS MSS BPS TWS TSS TMMS RPSDiga Jeldu Fogera

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Garzing of natural pastureTethering on natural pasturecrop residues of In situ grazing crop residues off situ feeding

% o

f res

pond

ents

Only tethering in Diga In situ grazing of crop residues

Livestock Water Productivity

Woreda Farming systems

N LWP (US$ 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

Livestock Water Productivity…

TMS MSS BPS TWS TSS TMMS RPS Diga Jeldu Fogera

0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.3

Better off

Medium

Poor

Farming systems within each Woreda

LWP

(US$

-3)

• High LWP for better off

lower LWP for poor

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.

Thank you!!

THANK YOU!