The Role of Improved Forages in Solving the Water Scarcity Issue of 4 Billion People

Global animal production requires about 2422 Gm3 of water per year. Most of this volume is used by cattle, with 30% used in the beef sector and another 19% in the dairy sector. At the same time, four billion people suffer from severe water scarcity, raising the flag on diverting an important part of the water globally to livestock production. Livestock-water interactions have therefore gained a prominent profile and fuelled discussions on the water footprint of livestock. A series of studies on the most important components of the livestock water footprint have shown that globally more than 90% of the footprint was due to feed production. Despite huge geographical heterogeneity and large differences in terms of livestock production system, feed production thus is a major target to implement water use efficiency strategies. In the tropics, crop-livestock systems and pastoral systems are the most common livestock production systems, and offer several options to diversify the feed basket and increase feed water productivity. Inclusion of improved forages, adapted to specific environments, can further minimize the demands of water for feed production. Indeed, several advantages can be expected: (i) “water saver” forages increase the amount of quality biomass available per drop of water, (ii) synchronization with fertilizer and manure application decreases the contamination of water bodies by a more efficient use of soil available nitrogen, and (iii) growing forages has positive impact on soil water retention through decreased evaporation, improved texture and erosion mitigation, increasing therefore the amount of water available to plants. This is particularly the case in dry seasons, when alternatives would be irrigated or conserved feed, or concentrates. Policies should focus on facilitating the access of farmers to adapted planting materials, and on providing land use guidance to sustainably intensify livestock production in dedicated zones

The CLEANED Excel tool to assess the environmental impacts of livestock production

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundatio

Improved feeding and forages at a crossroads: Farming systems approaches for sustainable livestock development in East Africa

Dairy development provides substantial potential economic opportunities for smallholder farmers in East Africa, but productivity is constrained by the scarcity of quantity and quality feed. Ruminant livestock production is also associated with negative environmental impacts, including greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, air pollution, high water consumption, land-use change, and loss of biodiversity. Improved livestock feeding and forages have been highlighted as key entry point to sustainable intensification, increasing food security, and decreasing environmental trade-offs including GHG emission intensities. In this perspective article, we argue that farming systems approaches are essential to understand the multiple roles and impacts of forages in smallholder livelihoods. First, we outline the unique position of forages in crop-livestock systems and systemic obstacles to adoption that call for multidisciplinary thinking. Second, we discuss the importance of matching forage technologies with agroecological and socioeconomic contexts and niches, and systems agronomy that is required. Third, we demonstrate the usefulness of farming systems modeling to estimate multidimensional impacts of forages and for reducing agro-environmental trade-offs. We conclude that improved forages in East Africa are at a crossroads: if adopted by farmers at scale, they can be a cornerstone of pathways toward sustainable livestock systems in East Africa.</p

The CLEANED Approach for Flagging and Addressing Environmental Issues

While livestock presents an important livelihood strategy for many smallholders, it is also held responsible for important environmental impacts. In this paper, we used an online survey to identify the perceptions of global livestock experts on environmental impacts of livestock and how these might be tackled. We then explored how the CLEANED environmental ex-ante assessment tool (Comprehensive Livestock Environmental Assessment for improved Nutrition, a secured Environment and sustainable Development = CLEANED) responds to this and how it can be used to influence decision making towards more environmentally-friendly livestock production. According to the survey, there was general agreement between researchers, development practitioners and policy makers alike that livestock production systems are at risk of global environmental change while at the same time contributing to it. The major risks are perceived to be climate-related. The major impacts associated with livestock production, on the other hand, are considered to be land-related (degradation and competition for land), closely followed by pressure on water and GHG emissions. More sustainable livestock production practices are cited as most promising to reducing livestock’s environmental impact. The preferred technologies include managed grazing, improved pastures, silvo-pastoral systems and planted forages. A lack of rapidly available, site- and system-specific knowledge about such solutions and their potential environmental impacts are considered an important barrier to their successful implementation. The CLEANED environmental ex-ante assessment model aims to fill part of this gap. It can compare the relevant environmental impact indicators of the different solutions brought forward. The model has also been designed to be flexible when applied to a wide variety of contexts and provide systems-specific results. The expert survey further revealed that researchers, development practitioners and policy makers all based decisions on information, obtained from a variety of sources such as journal papers, internet searches and professional networks. The importance of journal papers, however, decreases as an information source from researchers over policy makers to development practitioners, while the use of professional networks and internet searches increases for these groups. This finding points to the importance of the participatory approach taken by the CLEANED team and the need to present results in appropriate multi-stakeholder forums and targeted internet posts. Further recommendations are made for increasing the use of the tool, i.e. making the outputs from the tool easier to interpret and training a variety of stakeholders in its use

Using the CLEANED approach to assess environmental impacts in the dual-purpose cattle value chain in Nicaragua

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundatio

Differences In \u3ci\u3eUrochloa\u3c/i\u3e Hybrids and Cultivars Biomass Production in Several Sites in Western Kenya

Forage production is at the core of improved livestock productivity, especially in sub Saharan Africa. The genetic potential of existing animals remains underutilized due to limited forage quality and quantity. Albeit wide range of forage germplasm that exists, little data is available for identifying suitable genotypes, matched to specific environments and production systems. Due to the spatial and temporal diverse environments in which livestock production happens, multi-locational screening of forage production and characterizing genotype by environment interaction is key. We selected seven Urochloa (Syn. Brachiaria) genotypes comprising three hybrids and four cultivars and established them in on-farm trials in western Kenya for dry matter evaluation and nutritional quality. We selected eight sites covering four administrative counties (Siaya, Kakamega, Busia, Bungoma), and each county hosting two replicated trials, with each trial replicated 3 times. We observed dry matter yield differences across the counties in the order Bungoma \u3e Busia \u3e Kakamega \u3e Siaya. Similarly, the genotypes returned varied performance across the sites. Hybrids did well in one of the county, a mix of hybrids and cultivars in two counties and cultivars in the last county. Amongst sites, variation was least in Busia, and more pronounced in Bungoma. Continued assessments in subsequent cuts are underway. These will feed into context-specific recommendations about suitable forages for sustainable intensification in the face of global warming