Forages and the gradual shift towards more intensive management
Alan Robertson Consultant
Workshop on forage and fodder tree selection for future challenges —Linking genebanks to forage use, Addis Ababa, 16-20 March 2015
General thrust
• Support for intensification of livestock production
• Shift towards more grazing control, stall feeding
• Conspicuous benefits = high uptake rates (can only solve the problems with a high degree of spontaneous lateral spread)
• Widely diverse, scattered sites from the beginning
• Many (diverse) farmers from the beginning
• Farmers - forefront of screening/ promotion
• Diverse development strategies
• World-class genetic material
• Quick start
• Flexibility
Strategies
• Broad array
• Intensive and extensive
• All setting the stage for gradual intensification of livestock production
Irrigated forages
• Smallholder and commercial
• Irrigated lucerne !!!
• Other irrigation potential
– Mulato II + legume
– Guinea + legume
– Leucaena
– Desmanthus
Screening approaches
• Research stations ?
• FTCs ?
• Woreda nurseries ?
• Farmers’ fields, exclusion areas etc
Multiplication(major demand and the funding to support it)
but seed production is very complicated!!
Need to define target species
• Commercial livestock
• Meeting needs of poor smallholders
• Stock exclusion/ communal grazing areas
• Pastoralist areas
Indicative Capacity within 5 years(tonnes / annum)
Capacity
Grass seed 20 Absolute quality control
Grass - vegetative Unlimited Scattered sites
Legumes - vegetative Unlimited Scattered sites
Common Annual legumes Unlimited Shift from subsidy
Herbaceous legumes (stylos,Desmanthus etc)
400 Carefully selected areas
Jointvetch 400 Opportunistic harvest
Climbing legumes (e.g. for exclusion areas)
200 Carefully selected areas
Tree legumes 1000 Opportunistic harvest
Wynn Cassia etc ? Import
Production systems
• Institutional farms? (FTCs?)
• Larger commercial farms
• Smallholder farms ***********
• Specific seed production areas ? or
• Opportunistic harvesting ?
Can smallholders produce quality seed efficiently ?
Stylosanthes hamata cv Verano Kg/ha
Australian Commercial,mechanised 300 - 400
Thai research 400 incr to 600
Thai smallholder 800 – 1200 (export quality)
(Still smallholders after 35 years)
Smallholder forage seed production
Thailand (since 1976) Capacity for 1000 t perennial legume seed500 t grass seed
India (Ananthapur) 1000 t Stylosanthes hamatap.a.
Hirna (1988) 2,000 kg Siratro *** from 2ha
Robit, Gojam (1991) 50 tonnes Stylosantheshamata *****(400-800kg/ha)
Ethiopia (1980s) 20 tonnes Leucaena p.a. @EB1/kg
Smallholder production systems
• Select areas suited to efficient seed production !! (Generally, head north !)
• Clusters of farmers
• Very close supervision
• Firm contracts
The Thai Model
• Very long term institutional support (govt and bilateral).. Strong technical support
• Big volumes as soon as possible• Gradual private sector involvement• Very close supervision of contract farmers (2,000)• Absolute attention to quality from beginning• Reliability /credibility• Rapid adoption/ promotion of new material• Immediate attention to emerging export
potential
Thai seed (smallholder contract)Production is constrained only by the
market !!Germ
%Purity
%Farm gate
EB/kgSellingEB/kg
ProductnCapacity
(t / a)
Stylos 99 98 65 160 1000 Match production to expected market
Mulato II 90 99 140 280 300 Match production to expected market
Determining pricing
• Volume of demand ?
• Likely yields
• Labor requirements
• Need for supervision ?
• Returns from alternative crops
• Need some flexibility, but…very difficult to reduce contract prices
Indicative contract prices
Leucaena EB 5 /kg ***
Per.herb. Legumes (Stylos, Desmanthus) EB 50 /kg
Jointvetch (Aeschynomene spp) EB 20 /kg **
Climbing per. Legumes (axillaris etc) EB 50 /kg
Grass- vegetative EB 400 / pick-up load ??
Legumes - vegetative, stripped of leaves EB 600/pick-up load
*** Difficult to reduce contract prices significantly
*** High prices will make large-scale sowing untenable.
Alfalfa seed
EB / kg
Ethiopia farm gate price 350 Unknown genetics ??
Ethiopia sale price 500-550
Australia farm gate price 55 Known genetics, cultivars for specific locations, constantly upgraded
Australia sale price 130
Rhodes grass establishment
EB / kg
Rec. seeding rate (kg/ha)
Planting matlCost / ha
Eth. commercial 350 6 - 8 2100 - 2800 Slow, unreliableestablishment
Aust. commercial 300 1-2 300-600
Vegetativeestablishment 6person days/ha
480 Reliable establishment, cutting within 6 weeks.
Very wide scattering of sites (on-farm, FTCs, stock market centres, schools)
Free or local barter/ payment Planting-out when season is right
Aiming at spontaneous adoptionWe don’t want to be distributing planting material forever!
(need conspicuously useful species)