Yield gap analyses to estimate attainable bovine milk yields and evaluate options to increase production in Ethiopia and India

Livestock provides an important source of income and nourishment for around one billion rural households worldwide. Demand for livestock food products is increasing, especially in developing countries, and there are opportunities to increase production to meet local demand and increase farm incomes. Estimating the scale of livestock yield gaps and better understanding factors limiting current production will help to define the technological and investment needs in each livestock sector. The aim of this paper is to quantify livestock yield gaps and evaluate opportunities to increase dairy production in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, using case studies from Ethiopia and India. We combined three different methods in our approach. Benchmarking and a frontier analysis were used to estimate attainable milk yields based on survey data. Household modelling was then used to simulate the effects of various interventions on dairy production and income. We tested interventions based on improved livestock nutrition and genetics in the extensive lowland grazing zone and highland mixed crop-livestock zones of Ethiopia, and the intensive irrigated and rainfed zones of India. Our analyses indicate that there are considerable yield gaps for dairy production in both countries, and opportunities to increase production using the interventions tested. In some cases, combined interventions could increase production past currently attainable livestock yields

Haalbaarheidsstudie alternatief voedsel als ondersteuning voor biologische bestrijding

Biologische bestrijding van plagen met natuurlijke vijanden komt in veel gewassen onvoldoende tot stand. De reden hiervoor is dat veel natuurlijke vijanden zich maar matig, of zelfs helemaal niet vestigen in een gewas in perioden met weinig voedsel. Dit rapport geeft de resultaten weer van een haalbaarheidsstudie naar de mogelijkheden om alternatief voedsel in te zetten voor ondersteuning van natuurlijke vijanden in de glastuinbouw. Daarbij hebben we ons beperkt tot generalistische roofmijten en roofwantsen. Literatuur laat zien dat er goede mogelijkheden zijn om predatoren op alternatieve voedselbronnen te kweken. Deze studies waren hoofdzakelijk gericht op de ontwikkeling van massakweken. Het ondersteunen van roofmijten en roofwantsen op gewassen met alternatief voedsel is een nog weinig beproefde methode, maar krijgt wereldwijd steeds meer aandacht. In dit onderzoek hebben we 16 voedselbronnen getest die waren in te delen in de categorie (1) alternatieve prooidieren, (2) (bijen)pollen en (3) kunstmatige voedselbronnen op basis van eiwitten, koolhydraten, suikers en vitamines. De voedselbronnen zijn zowel in het laboratorium als in de kas beoordeeld.De kasproeven lieten zien dat er mogelijkheden zijn om roofmijtpopulaties op gewassen te ondersteunen met goedkoop kunstmatig voedsel. De voedselbronnen waren in staat op chrysant dichtheden van 2 tot 4 roofmijten per blad in stand te houden. De tot nu toe onderzochte producten waren matig of niet geschikt voor reproductie. Literatuur laat zien dat alternatief voedsel veel mogelijkheden biedt voor het verbeteren van de biologische bestrijding, maar dat er ook risico¿s aan verbonden kunnen zijn. Ook dat laatste moet worden onderzocht. Er moet onderscheid worden gemaakt tussen substituut-voedsel, dat voedsel van een prooi volledig kan vervangen, en supplementair voedsel, dat voornamelijk de levensduur verlengt, maar niet geschikt is voor reproductie. Verder is er behoefte aan onderzoek om een alternatieve voedselbron verder te ontwikkelen tot een goedkoop, commercieel toepasbaar product. Mogelijkheden liggen er bij zowel kunstmatige voedselbronnen als bijenpollen

Matemática Básica-CE76-201301

El curso brinda al alumno el uso de nociones básicas de proporcionalidad porcentajes interés simple y compuesto ecuaciones lectura de gráficos y funciones que le permiten resolver situaciones y problemas numéricos reales en su día a día. El curso de desarrollará a través de problemas y ejercicios aplicado

Capturing agroecosystem vulnerability and resilience

Vulnerability and resilience are two crucial attributes of social-ecological systems that are used for analyzing the response to disturbances. We assess these properties in relation to agroecosystem buffer capacity and adaptive capacity, which depend on the 'window of opportunities' of possible changes in terms of selected performance indicators, i.e., the solution space. The vulnerability of the system was quantified as the distance of performance indicators between original and disturbed systems. The buffer capacity was derived from the size of the solution space that could be obtained after reconfiguration of farm components (crops, animals, fertilizers, etc.) that were present on the original farm, whereas the assessment of adaptive capacity was derived in a similar way, but after allowing innovation by introducing new components to the farm. To illustrate the approach, we applied these concepts to two dairy farms in Northwest Michoacán, Mexico. After a disturbance resulting in a fodder maize yield decline, both economic profitability and soil organic matter inputs were reduced. The scope for recovery was different between the farms, but the projected improvements in profitability and organic matter inputs would require considerable changes in the farm configurations, and thus flexibility in farm management. High resilience requires a farmer with the managerial ability to make the required changes to move through the proposed solution space. The approach we present here offers a generic quantitative assessment of vulnerability and resilience concepts, based on a combined assessment of the social and ecological dimensions of agroecosystems..</p

Leverages for on-farm innovation from farm typologies? An illustration for family-based dairy farms in north-west Michoacán, Mexico

Knowledge on farm diversity provides insight into differences among farms, enables scaling from individual farm to farm population level and vice versa, and has been used in the definition of recommendation domains for introduction of novel technologies. Farm diversity can be broadly described in terms of resource endowment and resource use strategy, or in other words, in terms of scale and intensity of production. Measuring intensity of production requires much greater monitoring effort than measuring scale of production, and often only proxies of production intensity are used. Using data from a regional farm survey and from intensive on-farm monitoring the question addressed in this paper is to which extent results of farm surveys that measure primarily scale of production can inform on-farm interventions aimed at improving farm performance. The survey included a random sample of 97 out of 664 smallholder dairy farmers in a community in north-west Michoacán, Mexico. Farm types were identified by a combination of Principal Component Analysis to reduce the dimensionality of the dataset, followed by Cluster Analysis. The survey was complemented with detailed analyses of costs, revenues and productivity on 6 farms over the course of one year. Survey results revealed considerable variation among the dairy farms in land area, livestock units, amount of hired labour, and infrastructure and equipment, which led to the distinction of 4 farm types. Indicators for animal health management and feeding strategies were uniform across the 4 types. The farm types matched the distinction of family-based and semi-intensive farm types used in Mexico. The detailed analyses of the individual farms belonging to the different types, however, revealed differences in resource use strategies reflected in differences in animal productivity, labour productivity and return to labour. Differences in animal productivity and labour productivity were explained by stocking rate, albeit in different ways. Return to labour was strongly related to cost of feed. Profitability was negative for all farms and was on most farms related to high external feedstuff costs, which constituted 59–89% of the feed cost of the animal ration. The results indicate that in addition to variables reflecting resource endowment or scale of production, typologies that aim to inform on-farm interventions need to consider farm characteristics that reflect intensity of production. Which variables should be selected will need to be determined in a preliminary assessment. To enhance internal resource use efficiency as was the purpose in the current study, candidate variables expressing intensity could include the share of external feed in the ration and proxies of internal resource use, e.g. reflected in crop and milk yields. Opportunities for on-farm innovation arising from the analyses are discussed from the perspective of labour flexibility, low costs and use of internal resources

Dibujo Arquitectónico-AR173-201300

El dibujo arquitectónico es el lenguaje del que se valen los arquitectos para comunicar sus ideas.El dibujo es una herramienta imprescindible en el proceso de diseño pues cumple una triple función: (a) es el principal medio para desarrollar una idea (b) para transmitirla y conseguir su comprensión y aceptación y (c) para dar las instrucciones que permitan su edificación. En este proceso es indispensable familiarizarse con los códigos las técnicas gráficas y demás recursos universalmente aceptados

Resource use efficiency and farm productivity gaps of smallholder dairy farming in North-west Michoacán, Mexico

Smallholder dairy farms that intensify production risk resource degradation and increased dependence on external feeds and fertilizers due to lack of knowledge and appropriate technology, which undermines farm productivity and profitability. Here we analyze underlying causes at farm level of such process through an integrated analysis at the farm scale by assessing current resource use efficiency for grazing-based dairy farming systems representative of NW Michoacán, Mexico. Whole-farm yield gaps were quantified by comparing current farms to virtual reference farms that have the same farm surface area but improved farm management. Productivity of reference farms was calculated by assuming best crop production practices (as observed within the set of case study farms) and improved herd management. Three family-based (FB) and three semi-specialized (SS) dairy systems spanning three levels of intensification in terms of density of livestock units (LU): extensive (E, 1.2 LU ha-1) were monitored during one year (rainy and dry seasons) to assess productivity and resource use efficiencies. Milk production was generally low and variable (2.2–4.3 Mg milk cow-1 lactation-1, and 0.6–5.8 Mg ha-1) due to high incidence of mastitis, a large fraction of non-productive animals in the herd and inefficient reproduction management. During the dry season, grazing areas provided insufficient metabolizable energy, and milk production was sustained through increased use of concentrates (from 310 g kg-1 DMI in rainy season to 454 g kg-1 DMI-1 in dry season of the herd) and conserved forage. All farms had positive nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium balances, averaging 75 ± 16, 15 ± 6, and 19 ± 6 kg ha-1, respectively. Nutrients in animal excreta were mostly not recycled on the farms but lost to the environment, and nutrient surpluses increased with livestock density. The reference farms exhibited an attainable milk yield of 2.7 Mg ha-1 on the basis of full feed self-supply, and 4.2 Mg ha-1 when the crude protein limitation in the ration was lifted. Compared to the reference farm actual milk yields were on average 78.4% lower on FB farms and 57.9% lower on SS farms. The underlying causes of the farm yield gap differed between farms and were due to sub-optimal areas of forage maize, low forage and forage maize productivity and deficient herd management. We conclude that the farm yield gap analysis was effective in identifying the major shortcomings in management of the dairy farming systems and enabled formulation of change avenues for farm reconfiguration focusing on combined improvements in crop, feed and herd management and recycling of nutrients through manure management