April2010

The good news is …

Integrating the livestock water productivity concept into the planning and implementation of projects can enhance the productivity of the system, reduce water losses, produce more food and protect the environment.

And the not so good news is …

We would like to acknowledge BMZ-Germany for supporting the project on Improving productivity of mixed crop-livestock systems in sub-Saharan Africa. We are thankful to the CGIAR System-wide Livestock Programme (SLP), and the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF) for their collaboration and input.

THREE WAYS TO IMPROVE LIVESTOCK WATER PRODUCTIVITY IN ETHIOPIA

Katrien Descheemaeker (IWMI/ILRI), Tilahun Amede (ILRI/IWMI), Everisto Mapedza (IWMI)

Keeping many animals on marginal land contributes heavily to the downward spiral of low animal productivity and environmental degradation.

INTRODUCTIONImproving the water productivity of mixed crop-livestock systems is important both for people’s livelihoods and environmental resilience. The interventions and strategies to improve livestock water productivity (LWP) vary with socio-economic status, production system and level of intensification. Generally, interventions can be grouped in three categories, namely feed management, water management and animal management. However, quantitative assessments of the effects of interventions on LWP are mostly lacking. Based on a gap analysis for mixed crop-livestock systems in Ethiopia, we present three promising interventions and evaluate their effect on LWP and its components.

WHERE COULD WE MAKE THE BIGGEST SAVINGS?The water flow analysis demonstrated (Fig. 1):- productive transpiration only 50% of total water outflow - a lot of unproductive evaporation - high runoff and deep percolation

The annual energy budget showed (Fig. 2):- ¾ of the energy for maintenance- very little energy for milk and meat production

3 strategies: (1) drinking water in the homesteads, (2) better feed availability and quality and (3) land rehabilitation

Figure 1: Water flows per ha of cropland and grazing land Figure 2: Annual energy budget for the livestock herd of an average household

LESS WALKING, MORE MILK- Without water harvesting: 12 % of annual energy lost by walking - With water harvesting: energy for walking reduced from 1956 to 584 MJ ME per TLU

Saved energy used for extra growth, milk production and improved overall condition and health, without depleting more water for feed production

Household survey: - Without water harvesting: 343 (±100) litre of milk- With water harvesting: 463 (±123) litre of milk

BETTER FEED FOR HIGHER WATER PRODUCTIVITYImproving feed quantity and quality through (1) urea treatment of teff straw, (2) leaves and pods from fodder trees, (3) concentrates (oil seed cake and wheat bran), and (4) improved dual-purpose legumes.

Increased land and water productivity of feed biomass and feed energy (Table 1): - urea treatment of teff straw: 1% improvement in LWP- other feed interventions: 5-6 % improvement in LWP

feed productivity

(t/ha)feed WP (kg/m3)

energy productivity

(103 MJ ME/ha)

energy WP (MJ ME/m3)

improvement in LWP (%)

baseline 1.9 0.60 15.5 4.8urea treatment 1.9 0.60 15.7 4.9 1fodder trees 2.0 0.62 16.4 5.1 6concentrates 1.8 0.62 14.8 5.1 6dual purpose legume 2.0 0.62 16.5 5.1 5

GREENER WATERSHEDS, LESS WATER LOSSESProtection against grazing pressure in exclosures leads to:- vegetation restoration, increased biomass production- effects on water flows: less evaporation, less runoff, more transpiration- restoration of regulating, supporting and provisioning ecosystem services- production of high quality hay for livestock feeding- livestock keepers lose easy access to grazing land

open grazing exclosure

CONCLUSIONSBased on a gap analysis and ex-ante assessment of the effects of interventions, it was concluded that LWP can be significantly improved by interventions focusing on providing adequate livestock drinking, sufficient high quality feed, and reversing land degradation. Combining these three interventions could foster the transition to keeping less, but more productive animals. With adequate feed and water provided in the homestead, animals would rely less on grazing highly pressurized rangelands, which would improve both environmental resilience and animal health. However, to ensure adoption of these technical solutions, they have to be backed by enabling policies and the institutional, cultural, and economic context of the target community has to be taken into account.

Table 1: Ex-ante assessment of the effects of feed interventions on water and land productivity

Figure 4: Rehabilitation of degraded hillslopes through protection against grazing

Figure 3: Watering of livestock in the homestead

Land degradation

Inadequate feedEnergy lossesfor walking

Increased milk production

Increased water use efficiency