 Recent
experience in Latin America and Southeast Asia has shown that
improved tropical forage grasses and legumes are highly effective
for intensifying small-scale livestock production, while at
the same time protecting soil and other natural resources. Their
appeal to farmers lies in their high productivity and nutritional
value and adaptation to stresses, such as drought and acid soils.
Most improved grass forages are derived from indigenous species
to Africa. There is now a demand from several National Agricultural
Research Organisations in East and Southern Africa to return
the improved varieties for further testing within the African
farming context. The National Agricultural Research Organisation
(NARO)
in Uganda is now establishing a live germplasm bank with the
latest released varieties of forages, serving as a distribution
centre for small quantities of planting materials and seeds
for experiments in the region. CIAT and the International Livestock
Research Institute (ILRI)
are contributing species to this germplasm bank.
 The
two International Research Centres are expanding their collaborative
forage research in the region. Together with NARs and NGOs,
CIAT and ILRI have started research on forage technologies
with farming communities in Ethiopia, Malawi, and Uganda.
What these communities have in common is their struggle for
survival in rural isolation, the importance of livestock for
income generation, and the severe shortage of livestock feed.
CIAT, ILRI, and national partners have started a structural
dialogue with farmer groups about the relevance of forages
to the system, the type of innovations that can be tested
by farmers themselves, and the process of evaluation.
In Debre Zeit, Ethiopia, farmers have already screened 13
different grasses, herbaceous- and tree legumes in protected
areas in their compound, and are expending the evaluation
of some favourite species to larger areas in the field, this
season. The production of seeds to enable expansion of forages
to large areas on-farm is another research issue that is being
addressed through the collaborative research process. In Dedza
and Ukwe, Malawi, farmers have prepared communal evaluation
sites, fenced with local materials, and are planting this
rainy season.
A solid basis for the work in Uganda and Malawi was provided
by the ERI team of CIAT-Africa. They
had started the participatory diagnostic phase, and empowered
these communities to select agro-enterprise options that they
wished to develop. Livestock enterprises often score high
priorities among farmers. The facilitation and development
of guidelines for poultry, rabbit, and pig enterprise developments
are other future plans of ERI and its partners.
Another initiative will link Africa with cutting-edge research
on other continents, aimed at boosting farmer adoption of
tropical forages. Drawing on the wealth of data and experience
already available as well as on local knowledge, scientists
are developing computer-based information systems that help
R&D professionals decide where and how a wide array of
tropical forages can best be integrated into livestock production
systems.
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