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Entry Points To Improve Livestock Water Productivity In Selected Forage Based Livestock Systems, Amare Haileslassie, Katrien Descheemaeker, Michael Blummel, Peter Craufurd, Kebebe Ergano

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Agricultural production is challenged by increasing water scarcity and simultaneously growing demands for food and feed. Globally livestock feed sourcing is seen as one of the major causes for water depletion, and therefore increasing livestock water productivity (LWP) is necessary. Feed sources in Forage Based Livestock Production Systems [FLPS (grazing, mixed-irrigated and mixed-rainfed)] largely consist of pasture, crop residue, or immature cereal crops, and also plants cut for fodder and carried to the animals. In drylands (arid and semi-arid) eco-regions, FLPS are generally extensive and thus the scale of water depletion for feed production is a major concern. This paper …

Current Status Of Stylosanthes Seed Production In Southern India, Nagaratna Biradar, Vinod Kumar, B. V. Rajanikant

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

India is a significant producer of Stylosanthes (stylo) seed (principally S. hamata). Most of this seed is produced by villagers and small farmers in the Anantpur district, Andhra Pradesh, southern India. This is one of the poorest regions in the State, with harsh climatic conditions, poor, zinc-deficient soils, and (in the stylo seed production area) farm sizes averaging less than 2 ha. Marketing is handled by an informal network of seed traders who distribute stylo seed within a 25-30 km radius and, via the next level of traders, to other parts of India. A survey of seed production in …

Farmer To Farmer Spread Of Fodder Crops--An Analysis On Mango Orchards In South India, Nagaratna Biradar, B. G. Shivakumar, Vinod Kumar

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

India ranks first among world mango (Mangifera indica L.) producing countries, accounting for about 50% of world production. Karnataka in southern India is one of the important mango producing provinces of the country. The total area under mango crops in Karnataka is 160,000 ha of which 90,000 ha is in prime fruit yielding stage. In the year 2011-12 alone the area under mango crops has gone up by 10,000 ha (DoH, 2013). The usual planting distance followed by most farmers for mango is 10 m by 10 m. Intercropping, mainly with small millet is practiced until the mango trees …

Fodder Seed Bank–An Initiative For Green Fodder Production During Lean Period By Kvk, Jehanabad Under Nicra Project, Shobha Rani, R. K. Sohane, Dinesh Mahto, Basant Kumar Sharma

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Fodder production is an often-overlooked aspect of livestock rearing. The scarcity of fodder during lean period poses great problem before the livestock owners. The case with availability of green fodder is even more serious. Green fodder is essential for feeding of the dairy animals as poor nutrition is the biggest constraint in animal production, especially in dairy cattle production. This problem arises mainly due to the fact that ruminants are basically fed with fibrous forages and low quality roughages such as straws, especially during the lean seasons. The fodder seed availability is a major constraint apart from the interest of …

Forage Seed System, Indigenous Knowledge And Constraints Of Forage Production In Afghanistan, Srinivas Tavva, Roberto Tellaria, Zewdie Bishaw, Niane Abdul Aziz, Serkan Ates, Yashpal Singh Saharawat, Hyatullah Esmati

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

The Afghanistan seed sector is in transition after the postwar reconstruction and rebuilding (Kugbei et al., 2011). Though the national seed policy and law was enacted in 2009 (Gazette, Govt. of Afghanistan, 2009), its implementation is yet to take off. Availability and access to quality seed is one of the major limiting factors for the crop-livestock production system in Afghanistan. Informal seed sector is dominant where the vast majority of farmers are saving their own seed of both local and improved varieties of forage crops. The purpose of this study is to understand the status of the forage seed …

Sustainability Of Grassland Resources In Afghanistan: A Review, Yashpal Singh Saharawat, Hyatullah Esmati, Abdul Rahman Manan

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Afghanistan is land locked country with arid and semi-arid climatic conditions. Out of 65 million ha of its land area, grassland and pastures cover 30 million ha. The grassland is reducing significantly from last six decades mainly due to poor governance in the last three decades of war and conflict, non-existence of scientific capacity and capability, land encroachment, increasing population, urbanization, poor policies and support from the Government, consistent increase in the population of cattle (291%), goats (160%) and (donkeys 290%) during the last two decades (World Bank, 2011).

Constraints For Grassland Development In Kadesara Kala Village, Lalitpur, Bundelkhand: A Case Study, Ravi Pratap Singh, Rajiv K. Agrawal, Satendra Kumar, Sunil Kumar, M. M. Das, J. B. Singh, Satyapriya

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

India is maintaining a livestock population of over 500 million and has a grim situation of forage and feed deficit to the tune of 35.6% green fodder, 10.95% crop residues and 44% concentrate. In term of nutrients, the deficit is expected to the tune of 24.6 and 19.9% respectively by the year 2020. The gap is to be bridged up through development as well as extension of appropriate fodder production technologies suitable for different farming situation strategies. Fifty-eight % of the available fodder comes from grazing land and 42% from stall feeding with crop residues (30%) and leaf fodder (12%). …

Reversing Land Degradation Through Grasses: A Systematic Meta Analysis In The Indian Tropics, Debashis Mandal

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Soil water infiltration influences potential top soil loss by erosion, as well as the partitioning of runoff into slow flow and quick flow. The aim of the work presented here was to critically review studies of the effects of grasses on reversing the process of land degradation and improving the soil infiltrability in the tropics, using a systematic review. The study area was divided into arable and non-arable conditions and the effect of grasses were deduced as grass strip and pastoral systems, respectively. I then applied meta-analysis to test the hypothesis that use of grasses as grass-strips in agriculture increases …

Adaptation To Changing Institutional, Market And Bio-Physical Environments: The Case Of China’S Grasslands, Colin G. Brown, Scott A. Waldron, John W. Longworth

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

In the modern world, small pastoral herder households living on grasslands in countries such as China face major challenges in adapting to changes in their institutional, market and bio-physical environments. In China, these changes have been profound over the last 30 years. Herders, their communities and others dependent on the grasslands have responded to these developments but not always as might be expected. In this paper, the sources of the macro-forces in China that have created the pressure for change at the grass roots are outlined and the micro-adjustments made by herders and others in response to these pressures are …

Pasture Reform And Its Implementation In Kyrgyzstan, А. Egemberdiev, K. Ismailov, M. Bayaliev

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Presently the determination of mechanisms for effective management and sustainable use of pasture resources rely heavily on agricultural policy development. This is not only the case in the Kyrgyz Republic but also in other countries because grasslands are a significant resource covering about half of the earth’s surface. The success of developing and implementing policy goals on grassland use often has direct impact on vital national issues as: the welfare of the people; food safety; preservation of the ecological integrity of natural ecosystems, as well as greenhouse gas sequestration in each country where pasture use is critical in the economic …

Socio-Economic Implications Of The Forage Livestock Balance Policy, Li Yang

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

There are generally two kinds of rangeland dynamics models, range model and state-and-transition model, as the concept of livestock carrying capacity was not as useful as expected in non-equilibrium rangeland systems (Behnke and Abel 1996; Turner 1993), although the equilibrium and non-equilibrium ecosystems are not distinguished as different (Briske, Fuhlendorf et al. 2003). Based on range model theory, the Forage Livestock Balance Policy (FLBP) has been implemented for ten years in China.

This policy has been trying to adjust the utilization of grasslands according to the assessed livestock carrying capacity (LCC). After ten years experience, this paper reports on the …

Bridging The Gap Between Science, Economics And Policy To Develop And Implement A Pilot Market Based Instrument For Soil Carbon, Kate Lorimer-Ward, Warwick B. Badgery, Jason Crean, Brian Murphy, Andrew Rawson, Leonie Pearson, Aaron Simmons, Karl Andersson, Elizabeth Warden, Ian Packer, David Trengove, Mary Kovacs

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Increasing soil organic carbon (SOC) has potential to offset greenhouse gas emissions, but the scope for on-farm carbon sequestration is poorly understood. A pilot scheme was developed in Central West NSW, Australia to trial the use of a market-based instrument to encourage farmers to increase soil organic carbon levels. The pilot considered the relationship between land use, management practices and soil carbon levels; offered alternative contract designs to attract landholders; and developed monitoring and reporting protocols. The pilot was rolled-out in 2011 and 2012 and had 11 successful tenders with an average price of $A37 per t CO2-e. The results …

Policy Measures For Extensive Farming Systems In Southwest Norway, Lief Jarle Asheim, Pål Thorvaldsen, Odd J. Øvreås

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

The open landscapes produced over centuries by farming in southwest Norway are threatened by agricultural abandonment, raising public concern for maintenance of the species rich and valuable coastal grasslands. A study in two municipalities revealed that semi-natural grasslands, traditionally grazed in spring and fall and mowed in-between, are most affected. Two linear programming models, one for part time sheep farms and one for larger mixed dairy and meat farms, were developed to study measures for stimulating production, in particular effects on grazing and land utilization of altering support between leys, farm pasture, and grazing animals. Yields and fertilization level in …

Constraints Faced By Farmers In Fodder Production & Livestock Management In Western U.P., India, Manju Suman, Ashok Kumar, Vikash Kumar

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

The agrarian economy of the region is fully dependent on agriculture and related activities as clearly revealed by the utilization of land resource in the region. Fodder crop plays vital role in rearing of livestock. Fodder crops are mainly cultivated in kharif ( 87%) followed by rabi (90%) and jayad (45%). India is the largest producer of milk the world. Milk production has been growing at an average rate of 3.45% annum. The per capita availability of milk was around 296 gram per day in 2012-13. India covers about one fifth of livestock population of the world, but the milk …

Understanding Factors Influencing Farmers’ Intention For Adopting Improved Grassland Using The Theory Of Reasoned Action, In The Highlands Of Central Mexico, Carlos Galdino Martínez-García, Carloss Manuel Arriaga-Jordan, Adolfo Armando Rayas-Amor, Peter Dorward, Tahir Rehman

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Low adoption of improved grassland among small-scale dairy farmers has been attributed to different factors such as farmers and household characteristics, farm characteristics, institutional characteristics and capital constraints (Martínez-García et al., 2012). Several researchers illustrate the importance of farmers’ attitude, beliefs and social pressure from the salient referents in the adoption of innovations (Rehman et al., 2007; Rossi Borges et al., 2014). Regarding Mexico, there is a lack of information about understanding of attitudes, beliefs and social pressure underpinning farmers’ intentions to adopt agricultural innovations. In contrast to many adoption studies, it focuses on an innovation that …

The Ecological And Social Effects Of Eco-Environmental Policies On Grassland Rehabilitation In China, Shikui Dong

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Grassland degradation and desertification in China have challenged the sustainability of these invaluable natural resources. Since the beginning of 21st century, the Chinese government has set a lot of eco-environmental policies and programs to deal with these problems. To illustrate the effectiveness of these policies and programs in ecological and socio-economic dimensions, a quantitative assessment was conducted through collecting and analyzing the up-to-date information and data in this study. The results indicate that the ecological restoration projects facilitated by the grassland eco-environment policies and programs such as “Returning to Grassland by Excluding Grazing (RGEG)”, “Beijing-Tianjin Sand Source Control Engineering (BTSSCE)” …

Developing Frameworks To Assess Impacts Of Multiple Drivers Of Change On Grassland System, M. E. Wedderburn, Oscar Montes De Oca, Francisco Dieguez

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Grassland systems face many simultaneous pressures including market and policy compliance that operate from local to global scale. The ability to adapt to these pressures against a background of constrained natural resources and inputs is vital to the continued success of the grassland livestock industry and all those dependent on its outputs. New Zealand and Uruguay collaborators have been developing a suite of tools and processes embedded in an “innovation platform” to enable farmers, agribusiness and policy planners to engage and collectively learn about the impact of their interacting individual decisions and strategies. We describe the generic framework and demonstrate …

Comparison Of Biomass Productivity And Its Persistency Among Four Perennial Grasses For Bioenergy Feedstock Production In Temperate Region Of Japan, Naohiro Uwatoko, Masaaki Katsura, Tomoyuki Takai, Mitsuru Gau

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

The present study was the first report of comparison of above ground biomass yield and its persistence among several bioenergy crops in a temperate zone of eastern Asia.

Novel Approaches To Developing On-Farm Biomass Production Systems, S. Ray Smith, Thomas Clarkson Keene, Lee Carol Greenwell, Krista L. Cotten

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Energy security and climate change are issues facing many countries today. Finding clean, renewable fuel sources has provided a challenge to look beyond the obvious and search for new ways to use old resources. Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) is a warm season grass native to many parts of the United States. In 2007, the University of Kentucky (UK) College of Agriculture started a collaborative project with the UK Cooperative Extension, farmers in northern Kentucky, Kentucky Forage and Grassland Council and East Kentucky Power Cooperative to explore and demonstrate how switchgrass can be grown, harvested and utilized in an economical …

Famers’ Preferences For Fodder Trees In Agroforestry, Raghunandan Prasad Dwivedi, Sanjeev Kumar

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Agroforestry encompasses land use systems where woody perennials are intentionally grown on the same piece of land with agricultural crops and/or animals either in form of special arrangement of temporal sequence. A good deal of work has been done on the subject during last one and half decade. Agroforestry is an age-old land use that has been practiced for thousand of years by farmers the world over. Agroforestry is a land use that involves deliberate retention, introduction or mixture of trees or other woody perennials in crop/ animal production fields to benefit from the resultant ecological and economic interactions (Nair, …