While it possesses the largest livestock resource and there is a huge market in the world for both livestock and dairy products, Ethiopia is still slow walking in utilizing its ultimate potential of the sector for several reasons.
Even if the government and other development partners are working for the transformation of the livestock sector, there are some critical factors affecting the way the business is being handled. Some even argue that unless special ways are put in place, currently developing the livestock sector is assumed to be an environmental threat for different factors.
Meanwhile, a draft national feed resource development strategy is prepared by experts from Ministry of Agriculture, Agricultural Transformation Agency, Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research, International Livestock Research Institute and other private stakeholders.
The draft strategy suggests that feed is the bottleneck that needs to be addressed to reach the production objectives set by the livestock masterplan but of course not by putting aside the issues of reducing environmental impacts of the sector.
The Livestock Sector Analysis (LSA) of the Livestock Master Plan (LMP) roadmaps for growth and transformation of 2015 indicates that there were about 11.4 million livestock producing households in Ethiopia in 2013 and cattle were found to be the dominant species in 70 to 90 percent of livestock meat and milk production of all production zones, lowland and highland as well as in specialized commercial scale production systems. Thus cattle play dominant role in generating smallholder income and in meeting domestic meat and milk consumption demand.
Therefore, the LSA projected that if no investment is made in raising livestock productivity, there would be a deficit of 53 percent for all meat, 1.332 million tons and 24 percent for cow milk, 1987 million liters due to the exploding demand as a result of a rapid population growth and rising capita income by 2028.
Dr. Abule Ebro Livestock Forage Development Researcher who took part in drafting the strategy says the Country’s income from the sector in terms of GDP or export values is very low. Referring to the LMP, Abule notes that total feed need with the balance of a medium requirement shows negative outcome in average and bad years when good rainy season with 15.2 million tons of surplus available appears better. “This means there is a demand for more feed resources and changing the above picture is mandatory,” he says.
In order to improve the poor production potential, multiple interventions related to feed, genetics, health, and production are crucial, which made preparing the new strategy necessary, according to him. If addressing the ambitious plan in terms of meat, milk, egg, and different livestock products is a priority, the main focus should be feed resource development. Animal feed or agriculture, which holds 60 to 70 percent of the total cost of production is economically and biologically determining. Furthermore, there is a high rate of regional feed market in eastern and northern Africa worthy of 2.9 billion USD. Contributing in this market is something to consider, he adds.
The need to address global issues like climate change is also one factor that necessitates the feed resource development strategy. In this case, increasing production efficiency is the major target in line with the reduction of environmental degradation and vulnerability of society from environmental hazards including cost of production. One of the major factors that caused week competency in global market is the high amount of production cost in Ethiopia.
Dr. Getnet Assefa Senior Researcher at Land Olakes International Research Institute also tells The Ethiopian Herald that available forage in Ethiopia is from crop residue and natural pasture noting that the amount of cultivated forage is very little. He strongly believes that if the livestock sector has to transform, quality feed supply is compulsory. And he argues that it is unthinkable to expect the transformation of the sector with crop residue and natural pasture. Getnet also stresses that it cannot even be done through concentrate feed system adding that “On the current state of the Country the feasible option is forage and pasture crops production. That is the reality”.
According to him the reason why forage is a better option is that it has several comparative advantages in terms of environmental protection, preventing soil degradation, easy access and supply for quality livestock feed. Even though a lot has been done in adopting many types of forage for the past fifty years, there was not effective result, says Getenet. So far 49 forage varieties are registered while there are other varieties remaining under recommendation. Meanwhile, the productivity and quality of cultivated forage crops and natural pasture are highly efficient.
There have been efforts on agronomy practice, which focuses on how to produce special forage varieties with food crops in mixed system even with conventional way and by putting in to consideration the issue of recovering degraded lands in the past years. Introducing improved forage seed varieties has also been given due attention.
However, forage seed production and supply have been the major bottlenecks though there is an incremental change from time to time. Despite the fact that there has been an effort in demonstration and popularization through MoA, and other institutions including NGOs, the acceptance from and the difference made on the farmers was very low, argues Getenet.
That is because of the low acceptance from the farmers, less seed supply and weak extension system. Besides human and livestock population growth and scarcity of land caused limitations on the country to produce forage efficiently, says Getenet. Therefore, transforming livestock depends on increased amount of inputs particularly on market oriented animal feed resource development and strong extension system, suggests Getenet.
He says, the effort made on transforming seed sector has been commendable but it has ignored the forage seed sector and the new livestock feed resource development strategy would address the issue.
Yitay Alemayehu Transformation Agenda Advisor at MoA says that guidelines and regulations have been implemented in past trends and there has never been a research-oriented developmental strategy for the livestock sector particularly on animal feed. The new draft strategy will address most of the issues related with environment, productivity and production and will gear up the transformation of the livestock sector.
The Ethiopian Herald, Sunday Edition, October 27/2019
BY HENOK TIBEBU
