Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Strengthening Livelihood Of Rural Farmer Populations Through Improved Grasslands, Sujatha Premaratne, S. C. Somasiri

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

This paper reviews the current background of the grassland resource with a purpose of livestock perspective to improve the livelihood of rural farmers. The use of grasslands for livestock rearing by rural farmers has been a long tradition. In climate and vegetation contrast, these grasslands are much more diverse. They are likely to play an economical role in increasing the milk production in many Asian countries. With an increase of human population, the traditional feeding, breeding and surviving habitats for livestock have been acutely restricted in many countries. Therefore, a continued effort is needed to maintain production for sustainable management …

Impact Of Market Forces On Product Quality And Grassland Condition, David L. Michalk, Jianping Wu, Warwick B. Badgery, David R. Kemp

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

Meeting demands for livestock products which are predicted to more than double during the next 20 years, is central to the challenge of feeding the world sustainably. Smallholders will play a key role in achieving global security in animal protein. However, this requires a shift from subsistence to market-oriented farming where production efficiency not the number of livestock is the key focus with the aim of producing ‘more from less’. For grassland-based ruminant production, reducing stocking rate from current unsustainable levels under subsistence management is an essential first step to producing more production and profit from fewer animals. This is …

Stakeholders Integration For Sustainable Use Of Temperate Forage/Livestock Agriculture, Garry D. Lacefield, Don Ball

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

Forage/livestock production is complex, and best management options are often site-specific, but some concepts have broad application. The intent of this article is to provide an overview of research-based management approaches that the authors believe are necessary to ensure the sustainability of forage/livestock farms. This overview discussion is needed because livestock agriculture is changing, thus creating both challenges and opportunities for producers. In the last 30 years, beef numbers in the USA have declined by 20%, but production per cow has more than doubled, resulting in increased total production on less land with fewer animals. Similar statistics exist for the …

Sustainable Grasslands: Resolving Management Options For Livelihood And Environmental Benefits, David R. Kemp, Warwick B. Badgery, David L. Michalk

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

To help solve the major issues of improving livelihoods and environmental services, grassland research needs to be evaluated within the context of relevant farm systems. Treatments need to show that they not only have significant effects but that they have effects that are meaningful in the context of the relevant farm system. Research often defines an optimum criterion for management that is a single point, but that is difficult to achieve in practice, especially when there are several components in a grassland system that need to be optimised. It is argued that an appropriate criterion for optimising management is a …

Management Of Grazing Lands Through Educating Communities, D. Ariungerel, Graeme Hand, Annabel Walsh

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

The Mongolian steppe is one of the world’s largest grassland and it is an arid to semiarid land with a strong climate gradient. Biodiversity loss leading to desertification and land degradation is estimated to be impacting around 65% of the total area of Mongolia. The preliminary objective of this project was to trial the Positive Deviance Methodology to determine if this method assists herders to design behaviors to reverse this biodiversity loss. This project is a partnership between Mongolian Herders, Mongolian rangeland scientists and Australian based Stipa Native Grasses Association. The Positive Deviance Methodology has five basic steps based around …

Valuing Variability--New Perspectives On Climate Resilient Dryland Development, Saverio Kratli

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

Valuing Variability is a challenge to the view of the drylands as naturally vulnerable to food insecurity and poverty. It argues that improving agricultural productivity in dryland environments is possible by working with climatic uncertainty rather than seeking to control it – a view that runs contrary to decades of development practice in arid and semi-arid lands.

Breeding Strategies To Improve Fodder Legumes With Special Emphasis On Clover And Medics, Ajoy K. Roy, D. R. Malaviya, P. Kaushal

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

In India, Forage has a unique integration of agriculture and animal industry in diversified rich cultural environment. Greater part of rural economy in India relies much upon mixed farming system, a well-knit combination of crop production and livestock rearing. In India, grazing-based livestock husbandry plays an important role in the rural economy as around 50% of animals depend on grazing. Pasturelands over an area of 12 Mha constitute the main grazing resources that are available. Nearly 30 pastoral communities in hilly or arid/semi-arid regions in northern and western parts of India, depend on grazing-based livestock production. Nomadic pastoralism, a traditional …

Tropical Grassland Ecosystems And Climate Change, C. R. Babu, Vivek Kr. Choudhary, Vijay Kumar

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

Grasses are unique group of flowering plants that form the foundation for the trophic structure in terrestrial communities. The grasses are found in every conceivable habitat where plants can thrive – from sea to deserts and from wetlands to peaks of highest mountains. The grasses form a distinct biome – a major ecological formation in the global classification of vegetation.

Grassland And Livestock Production: The East African Case, David Miano Mwangi

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

Grasslands cover over 26% of the world land mass and about 80% of the agricultural area. They are the source of a livelihood for about 1 million people in the developing countries. Livestock contributes 40% of the global value of agricultural outputs. Approximately 60% of rural households keep livestock. In East Africa there are a number of grasslands. The most extensive of these are the Acacia based Savanna grasslands. Others include the sudd flooded grasslands of South Sudan and the Miobo woodlands of Tanzania. More than 60% of the livestock and wildlife in this region are found on these grasslands. …

Tropical Grasslands--Trends, Perspectives And Future Prospects, Panjab Singh

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

This paper attempts a rapid summary of the present day state of tropical grassland and livestock based production systems globally, especially in tropics, in relation to recent trends, future assessment, grassland rehabilitation and management strategies, future perspectives of grassland science and development including policy imperatives.

Climate-Smart Brachiaria For Improving Livestock Production In East Africa: Emerging Opportunities, Sita R. Ghimire, Donald M. G. Njarui, Mupenzi Mutimura, Juan A. Cardoso, Linda Johnson, Elias M. Gichangi, Suliana Teasdale, Kennedy Odokonyero, John Caradus, Idupulapati M. Rao, Appolinaire Djikeng

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

Brachiaria grass is an important tropical forage of African origin with desirable attributes of agricultural and environmental significance. Brachiaria has been extensively cultivated as a pasture across the tropics except in its endemic provenance of Africa. In 2013, a collaborative research program was initiated in Kenya and Rwanda with the aim of improving the availability of quality livestock feeds adapted to drought and low fertility soils using Brachiaria. The outcomes sought were increased livestock productivity leading to improved farmer income and the development of seed production opportunities. The program has identified five preferred cultivars, and four of them are currently …

Promising Forage Options To Enhance Livestock Production In Mediterranean Climate Agricultural Systems, Serkan Ates, Hayley C. Norman, Hichem Ben Salem, Bradley Nutt, Harun Cicek

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

The increasing demand for food, fibre and animal products inevitably requires intensifying agricultural production worldwide. This can present a number of environmental and farming systems challenges in Mediterranean climate areas of the world. Developments of novel strategies, employing ecologically sound intensification practices, are crucial to enhance production in the Mediterranean agropastoral production systems. In this paper, we have discussed forage based systems that improve productivity, profitability, environmental quality and resilience of the farming systems. Key opportunities include better use and integration of diverse genetic resources, new agronomic techniques and the utilization of perennial forage plants that are adapted to land …

Grassland Resources And Protections In The Yellow River Source Zone On The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, Xilai Li, Gary J. Brierley, Youming Qiao, George L. W. Perry, Jay King Gao

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

This paper summarises resources and protections of the Yellow River Source Zone on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. A concerted effort has been made to address concerns for overgrazing on the alpine steppe and alpine meadow landscapes in the source zone of the Yellow River. An assessment of the impacts of overgrazing includes consideration of the role of small mammals (on the one hand they are considered as a critical ecosystem engineer, on the other they are perceived as a major threatening pest). Analyzed in this paper are management options in the restoration of degraded grasslands.

New Methodologies For Grasslands Monitoring, Katarzyna Dabrowska-Zielinska, Piotr Goliński, Marit Jorgensen, Jørgen Mølmann, Gregory Taff, Monika Tomaszewska, Barbara Golińska, Maria Budzynska, Martyna Gatkowska

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

Monitoring grassland areas to assess changes in their condition over time has been the subject of a lot of research at different scales. Initially the techniques focused on field-based measurements, and modelling. However, several obtained data were site specific. Based on the increase in availability of remote sensing data and products, there is an expectation that remote sensing can provide rapid and definite answers to the challenges of detecting and monitoring grassland conditions and associated changes in productivity. At the time of European Copernicus Programme, the new possibilities of satellite data from the group of Sentinel satellites give the new …

Rainwater Harvesting And Its Impact On Farming Systems, J. S. Samra

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

Landless, small holders and other poors supplement their livelihood and adapt to climate change by grazing, stall feeding with crop residues and fodder cultivated under rainfed and irrigated conditions. Improving productivity by conserving rainfall, ground water recharging, harvesting and recycling of rainwater especially in degraded open access or shared land with community participation was quite successful over a wide range of precipitation and ecological situations. Various types of trenches, bunding, vegetative barriers, gully plugs, ponds, check dams, land slides and mine spoils stabilization etc. retained more soil moisture, seeds, vegetative propagules etc. in situ and prevented soil erosion. It regenerated …

Livestock Production From Grasslands With Improved Management Compared To Traditional Management, Florian Leiber

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

The value of traditional versus improved management systems for grassland is discussed. The set target is the persistence of the ecological, economic and social multifunctionality of grasslands and the increase of food output from these areas without increasing parallel requirements for arable crop or energy inputs. Based on the fact that historically traditional systems were stable and sustainable in many cases, while severe damage is faced nowadays, it is argued that lot of improvement should be based on the acknowledgment of successful traditional practises. The challenge might rather be to define improvement as a contemporary development of traditional techniques. The …

Evergraze: A Partnership Between Researchers, Farmers And Advisors To Deliver Effective Grassland Management, Warwick B. Badgery, Kate Sargeant, Michael A. Friend, Scott Glyde, Paul Sanford, Ralph Behrendt, Meredith L. Mitchell, Sean Murphy, Angela Avery

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

The profitable and sustainable management of livestock production from grassland systems is challenging and it can be difficult to develop a research structure that addresses farmer’s needs and has acceptable rigour and on-ground impact. This paper describes the attributes of research, development and extension (RD&E) programs that are required for a successful partnership between researchers, farmers and advisors. Insights are provided from the EverGraze program that designed, tested and implemented farming systems based on perennial pastures across southern Australia. With this project farmers and advisors were involved in setting research direction, designing experiments, providing strategic guidance over the management of …

Problems And Prospects Of Grassland Development: Policy Issues, S. Ray Smith

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

There are a range of government and non-government policies that affect grassland development around the world. The objective of this paper is to provide examples of successful policies which have been instrumental in the preservation and maintenance of grasslands and to highlight policies which have resulted in negative consequences. This paper will not attempt to provide a complete overview of policies, but instead will provide examples from representative countries. Policies which affect grasslands can be classified into two broad categories: government policies that cover comprehensive landscape issues like the Grassland Household Contract System (GHCS) in China or the Federal Land …

Participatory And Holistic Approaches With Grassland Farmers And Development Of Policies, Alain Peeters

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

The world is changing rapidly. Grassland farmers and ruminant livestock breeders will have to adapt to these changing environmental, social and economic conditions. Research can help them at the condition that linear ‘top-down’ technology transfer methods are abandoned for the benefit of participatory and holistic approaches. These approaches classified in the generic term of ‘Farming System Research’ consider farmers as real research partners, and they merge farmer’s and scientist’s ideas with those of other stakeholder types. They combine scientist’s and farmer’s knowledge for creating fast innovations, easily adopted by farmers since farmers themselves contribute to their design and their development. …

Livestock And Local Development: Going To A New Humananimal Relationship, Jean François Tourrand, Laurent Dobremez, Benoit Dedieu, Guillaume Duteurtre, M. G. Piketty, P. Lescoat, B. Hubert

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

Along the past ten years, the French National Agency for Research (ANR) has financed projects regarding livestock. Results of five projects were gathered to understand the long-term livestock trends. At the end of the 19th century, animal breeding was oriented towards the production of goods to meet the local, regional, national and global demand, according to the zone. The market gradually became the key-factor to norm both production and consumption. It is now integrating environmental norms and is starting to invest in the social domain. However, this economical vision of animal production does not take into account the other functions …

Genomic Approaches For Dissecting Complex Traits Related To Quality Production Of Range Grasses, Masumi Ebina

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

Tropical grasses have been widely used as warm-season forage grasses in the warm temperate zone since the early 20th century because of their high yields; they have also been used as perennial forages in their native tropical areas. Increasing demand for animal production sparked by economic development in tropical countries is requiring breeders to improve native forage grasses in these countries. Considerable efforts have been made to breed accessions with improved characteristics and to develop new cultivars. However, cross-breeding is not common, owing to a lack of genetic information and to complexities related to polyploidy, high sterility rates, outcrossing, and …

Recent Trends In Breeding Of Tropical Grass And Forage Species, J. S. Sandhu, Dinesh Kumar, Vijay Kumar Yadav, Tejveer Singh, R. P. Sah, Auji Radhakrishna

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

Germplasm enrichment in major tropical grasses and their characterization for emerging environmental challenges have been major focussed area in the recent past. Breeding efforts in tropical grasses are still limited to few selected species viz. Panicum spp, Cenchrus spp, Pennisetum spp and Bracharia spp and all other grasses use of land races for varietal development through selection have been major source of improvement. The pace of breeding efforts in the tropical grasses have been slowed because of many inherent characteristics viz. apomixis, poor seed set, high photo and thermo sensitivity often creating problem in designing and implementing an effective breeding …

Emission Of Green House Gases From Grasslands And Their Mitigation, Prem N. Sharma, Shyam Khadka

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

The concentrations of green house gases (GHG) in the atmosphere began in pre-industrial times and it continues to increase. This could result into an alarming increase in temperature of up to 5.4 ^oC by year 2100 due to a net global annual GHG emission of H 4.5-6.5 Gt C equivalent. About 18% of the world’s GHG are contributed by livestock and related activities on grasslands that are spread over almost 35 million Km².These grasslands give livelihood to over a billion people most of who are poor. Twenty to 70% of the land surface area is degrading often …

Sustainability, Biodiversity And Environmental Issues: A Global Perspective For Livestock Production, David L. Michalk

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

To meet world food demand through the 21st century, agricultural production needs to increase, but this needs to be done sustainably through increasing efficiency, optimising sufficiency and achieving consistency, such that resource use is optimised, waste reduced and environmental benefits gained. These strategies need to be developed against changing food patterns, especially a decline in per capita consumption of cereals and an increase in meat consumption as household incomes increase. Grasslands are collectively the larger group of land-based ecosystems on the planet. Their values are not always recognised, often being seen as ‘reserves’ for exploitation for urban expansion, …

Front Matter [23rd International Grassland Congress Proceedings], National Organizing Committee, International Grassland Congress

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

No abstract provided.

Using Various Lactic Acid Bacteria Strains During Forage Conservation Towards Fermentation, Storage, Nutritive Value And Safety Improvement, Jonas Jatkauskas, Vilma Vrotniakiene

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

Many research efforts have been devoted to find ways how to produce silages with maximum nutritive value, good fermentation and low mould and yeast counts. While there are different objectives in using silage additives, the main objectives are to improve fermentation and reduce dry matter loss, and to prevent secondary fermentation at feed out time. This paper presents our most significant and recent investigations on forage inoculation before ensiling that have a potential for beneficial application on grassland and ruminant nutrition.

Grassland Renovation And Consequences For Nutrient Management, Johannes Isselstein, Manfred Kayser

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

Sward degradation is a serious threat to the functioning of grassland and the provision of ecosystem services. Renovation measures are frequently applied in order to restore degraded swards. However, the success is highly variable and substantial tradeoffs are often found following renovation such as among agronomic and environmental services. Starting from a general classification of renovation measures the paper investigates the processes induced by renovation that lead to a change of the vegetation and that affect carbon and nitrogen fluxes. These processes are strongly interrelated and dependent on site, climate and management condition as well as on the time scale. …

Forage Seed Quality: Dormancy, Standards And Quarantine, John G. Hampton

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

There are many dimensions to the concept of seed quality. Viable seed which will not germinate when provided with all the requirements for germination is dormant. Forage grasses mostly exhibit non-deep physiological dormancy (PD), while physical dormancy (PY) is common in forage legumes where imbibition is prevented by the seed coat’s impermeability to water (hard seed). Methods for breaking PD and PY to allow germination testing and/or crop establishment are discussed.

In the seed industry seed quality standards are an important feature of quality assurance and may apply for seed production contracts, seed certification, seed sale and seed importing. Standards …

Importance Of Livestock Production From Grasslands For National And Local Food And Nutritional Security In Developing Countries, Iain A. Wright

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

Grazing lands cover more than a quarter of the world’s land surface, often on land that is unsuitable for other forms of use. Despite the perception that productivity is inherently low, the contribution of grasslands in food security in developing countries is significant. However the challenges of spatial and temporal variability of primary productivity need to be managed and mobility of livestock is key to this. Appropriate land management and governance arrangements are essential for facilitating this mobility and for creating the circumstances in which technical options for reducing variability and risk in livestock keeping can be deployed and to …

Front Matter [Preface And List Of Contributors], National Organizing Committee, International Grassland Congress

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

No abstract provided.