Feeding and working strategies for oxen used for draft purposes in semi-arid West Africa

This study was conducted to determine the energy expenditure of draft oxen working on sandy soils, performing common agricultural tasks, so that energy requirements could be determined; to establish the relationships between work and intake and digestibility of roughages by draft oxen; to investigate the effect of body condition before work and liveweight losses during work on work performance, and to investigate the implications of heat stress on draft oxen in semi-arid areas. This information will allow informed decisions to be made on the feeding and management of draft animals in semi-arid areas. Four experiments were conducted. Experiment 1 investigated the energy costs of walking on soils of different consistencies and the efficiencies of doing work. Experiment 2 and 3 were designed to establish the effect of work on intake, digestibility and rate of passage of feeds (millet stover) in the digestive tract. Experiment 4 looked at the effect of body condition before work and weight losses during work on work performance. The effect of heat stress was also investigated in experiment 2, 3 and 4. This report gives details of these experiments, the results obtained and, based on these, the recommendations made regarding feeding and working strategies for draft oxen in semi-arid areas

Maize and livestock: their inter-linked roles in meeting human needs in Ethiopia

This study was conducted to understand the roles and interactions of maize and livestock in meeting livelihoods requirement of Ethiopian households in the maize belt. Emphasis was given to the factors that determine the use patterns of maize in order to identify options for improving the use of maize as livestock feed. The specific objectives were to characterize the maize-livestock production system; to assess the availability and use of livestock feed in the system; to analyse the role of maize as food and feed; and to analyse the factors that affect the use of maize as livestock feed. The report is organized as follows. The first section is introduction. The following section presents methods of study. Section three describes the study area. Section four presents crop production in the maize belt area. Sections five and six deal with maize and livestock production in the maize belt, respectively. Section seven presents the multiple roles of maize, while section eight describes the feed marketing situation in the study area. Section nine concludes the paper and draws implications

Livestock and sustainable nutrient cycling in mixed farming systems of sub-Saharan Africa. Volume II: Technical papers. Proceedings of an international conference

Achieving sustainable increases in agricultural production in sub-Saharan Africa is both a regional and a worldwide concern. High human and animal population densities in some areas have surpassed land-carrying capacities causing environmental degradation and undermining the long-term stability of these production systems. In attempts to meet the increasing food demands of larger populations, farmers are cultivating more land permanently, grazing lands have diminished and many traditional farming practices that formerly allowed land to rejuvenate are disappearing. An efficient cycling of nutrients among crops, animals and soil is crucial to the sustained productivity of low-input mixed farming systems in sub-Saharan Africa. Access to agricultural inputs such as fertiliser and improved seed is limited. Nutrient balances, or the difference between nutrient inputs and harvests, are negative for many production systems. Although animal manures are perhaps the most important fertility amendment that many farmers apply to cropland, livestock can also contribute to these nutrient imbalances. Excessive removal of vegetation by grazing animals or harvesting feeds can deplete soil-nutrient reserves and result in decreases in soil productivity. A major portion of nutrients consumed by livestock may also be unavailable for recycling due to volatilisation, erosion and leaching losses, and uneven deposition of nutrients by animals in the landscape. The climatic and socio-economic changes currently taking place in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa suggest that sustainable increases in agricultural production from an increasingly fragile ecosystem require new and innovative crop, livestock, and soil-management strategies. To further this objective, the International Livestock Centre for Africa (ILCA) and its cosponsors convened this conference to bring together national and international experts in livestock (cattle, sheep and goats) nutrition and management, ecology, agronomy, soil science and socio-economics to address fundamental issues of nutrient balances, agricultural productivity and the well being of the people, livestock and environment of sub-Saharan Africa

Livestock and sustainable nutrient cycling in mixed farming systems of sub-Saharan Africa. Volume I: Conference summary

This document summarises the major discussions, findings and recommendations of the conference convened by ILCA and its cosponsors to bring together national and international experts in livestock nutrition and management, ecology, agronomy, soil science and socio-economics to address fundamental issues of nutrient balances, agricultural productivity and the well being of the people, livestock and environment of sub-Saharan Africa

Neutrino masses and mixing parameters in a left-right model with mirror fermions

In this work we consider a left-right model containing mirror fermions with gauge group SU(3)$_{C} \otimes SU(2)_{L} \otimes SU(2)_{R} \otimes U(1)_{Y^\prime}$. The model has several free parameters which here we have calculated by using the recent values for the squared-neutrino mass differences. Lower bound for the mirror vacuum expectation value helped us to obtain crude estimations for some of these parameters. Also we estimate the order of magnitude of the masses of the standard and mirror neutrinos.Comment: 13 pages, version submitted to European Physical Journal

Strategy for ILRI research on feed resources

The importance of feed in increasing livestock productivity and benefits from livestock is stressed. Four major feed resources are identified: pastures, common property resources, forests, and fallow lands; planted forages; crop residues; and concentrate and agricultural by-products. There is a scarcity of quantitative, countrywide data on the current contribution of these resources to the actual feed budget, and the likely trends in future. Systematic mapping of fodder resources is required, and seen as an integral part of feed research. Research on feed resources needs to contribute to poverty alleviation and production of global public goods, but ILRI also needs to have a competitive advantage in the research field, and the research needs to be cost efficient. Partnerships play a key role in producing synergies from diverse research efforts, and in implementation of research results and output-to-outcome processes. Collaboration between crop improvement and livestock research is seen as a key partnership in achieving the feed-related outputs of ILRI’s Medium Term Plan. Although considerable uncertainty exists in terms of quantitative contribution of specific feed resources to overall feed budget, it seems highly probable that crop residue plays, and will continue to play, a central role in sustaining mixed-crop livestock systems in resource-poor areas

The Influence of Socioeconomic Factors on the Availability and Utilization of Crop Residues as Animal Feeds

The fibrous by-products resulting from crop cultivation constitute a major source of nutrients for animal production in developing countries. On small farms, they form the principal feed of ruminant livestock during the dry seasons. Concerns about inadequate utilization of available feeds have led to the establishment of research programmes to improve the nutritive value and utilization of crop residues as ruminant feed. Despite this, farmer uptake of research findings has been limited. This paper explains why. It argues that the importance of crop residues as feed differs between production systems. Differences in production goals, resource endowments and socioeconomic conditions create different opportunities for the use of crop residues. Consequently, in designing research and extension projects that seek to improve use as livestock feed, it is pertinent to identify the main livestock production systems, farmers' production objectives and resource endowments, and determine the appropriate crop-residue-based diet for each system