Feed Resources for Producing Export Quality Meat and Livestock in Ethiopia Examples from Selected Woredas in Oromia and SNNP Regional States

Abstract

T he Government o f Ethiopia is trying to increase the export o f ruminant livestock and meat that can contribute to market-led economic growth and poverty reduction in the country. One o f the main constraints hampering this effort is the supply of cattle, sheep and goats which can meet export quality requirements. • Poor nutrition and feed shortages are root causes for the poor performance of the livestock sector in Ethiopia. Most livestock destined for export or slaughter are produced in the pastoral areas from rain fed pastures and are slaughtered with little or no access to better quality feeds required to increase weight, improve condition and dressing percentage and reduce age at slaughter. • Poor nutrition results in slow growth rate in growing animals and low production and reproduction performance. Poorly fed animals take too long to reach optimum slaughter weight and the meat produced by such animals may not satisfy the desired quality attributes (such as tenderness) to fulfill the demand o f the consumers. When the quality of the fodder is low, animals are not able to eat what is required to put on weight. Because of the slow growth rate, the animals become old before they reach the desired live weight for sale. Hence the quality o f the beef becomes far from satisfactory. Feed utilization is very inefficient as most o f the feed (about 85%) is used for body maintenance. In such a system there appears to be a tremendous potential for improvement. • There is a significant potential for feeding livestock from occasional surplus grains and agro-industrial by-products such as oilseed cakes, milling by-products, molasses and horticultural crop wastes. These potential feeds, their nutritive values and seasonal availability are not well documented. Thus this study was commissioned by the Ethiopia SPS-LMM Program with the objectives o f assessing the types, availability and nutritive value (protein, energy and micronutrients contents), alternative uses and prices of available feed resources, the location and seasonal availability o f the feeds and possibilities of enhancing forage supply and availability. The study was carried out as a pilot study during 2006 and 2007 in parts o f Oromia and Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples (SNNP) Regional States within a radius of about 200 km from Hawassa town. Five woredas (districts) were selected for the study from each region. These include Hawassa, Shebedino, Badawacho, Damot Gale and Soddo Zuria from SNNPR and Adami-Tullu Jiddo Kombolcha, Arsi-Negele, Lume, Kofale and Shashemene woredas from Oromia. The selection of the Wored? was based on their proximity, relative activity in animal fattening, feed production and marketing and hence the selected Woredas may not be representative of each region. Data/information on types, quantity, seasonal availability, price, uses and quality of different feed resources was collected, processed and analyzed. Moreover, relevant published and unpublished documents were reviewed. The nutritive values of the different feed resources were described based on analytical results published in various journals and workshop proceedings as well as on SSA Feeds (a webbased software and database that provides information on the nutritive value of a large number of livestock feeds from sub-Saharan Africa). See http://www.vslp.org/ssafeed/ A number of feed resources (roughages and concentrates) that can be used in feedlots and/or small scale fattening operations have been identified in the different areas that have been assessed. fhe predominant roughage sources are natural pastures, crop residues and aftermath grazing. Because o f expansion o f cultivation and shrinkage of traditional grazing areas, crop residues are assuming greater importance as sources o f roughage feeds than natural pastures in most places. • However, alternative uses o f crop residues are competing with their feed use. For example, tef straw is an important source roughage feed in feedlot operations. On the other hand, there is a competing demand for use o f this resource for house construction (for reinforcement o f mud for plastering o f walls during house construction). • In the enset and root crops growing areas of the south, by-products such as enset and banana leaves, sweet potato vines, cassava and sugar cane tops make substantial contribution to the livestock feed supply. • State Farms and Seed Multiplication Farms o f the Ethiopian Seed Enterprise also make a modest contribution to the livestock feed supply in their respective vicinities. The primary feed resources obtained from these enterprises are crop residues, stubble grazing and some damaged grains. • In maize and sorghum growing areas substantial feed resources are produced in the form o f thinning, leaf stripping, topping and stover. In State Farms and Seed Multiplication Farms producing open pollinated varieties o f maize, the male lines are removed after fertilization and sold to livestock producers either as green maize stover (after removing the cobs) or as whole maize forage (without removing the cobs). • Although a large number o f cultivated forage and pasture crops have been introduced to the study areas, the adoption and actual use o f the forages has been very much limited. Some o f the most commonly grown forage crops include Napier grass, Rhodes grass, oats, vetch, Green leaf and Silver leaf Desmodium, lablab, fodder beet, radish, pigeon pea, Sesbania and Leucaena. • Fodder conservation as hay or silage, when the forage is available in relatively large quantity for use during periods o f feed shortage, is not a common practice in most o f the areas. The supply and use of agro-industrial by-products (oilseed cakes, milling by-products and molasses) is limited to urban and peri-urban livestock producers. Although there are a large number of flour mills and oil processing plants in most o f the study areas, the actual production and supply o f milling by-products and oilseed cakes is very much limited. All the factories are operating below their capacity due to o shortage and high price of raw materials (wheat and oilseeds) o lack o f sufficient demand for the main product (wheat flour) in the case of flour mills o inability to compete with cheaply imported oil from abroad • Some o f the oil seeds such as sesame, noug and linseed have a high demand on the export market, contributing to shortage o f domestic supply to oil processing plants.