Tag: livestock
A Qualitative Evaluation of CSA Options in Mixed Crop-Livestock Systems in Developing Countries
Assessment of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Different Land-Use Systems: A Case Study of CO2 in the Southern Zone of Ghana
Intensifying Inequality? Gendered Trends in Commercializing and Diversifying Smallholder Farming Systems in East Africa
While the commercialization and diversification of agricultural and livestock systems have been identified as key global strategies for climate change adaptation and mitigation, less is known as to the large-scale gendered impacts that are implicated in these transformations among smallholder crop and livestock farmers. This study explores these gender impacts across different farming systems and gender-respondent-household typologies using data from the Rural Household Multiple Indicator Survey (RHoMIS) in 2,859 households in three East African countries—Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania. Female control scores over incomes or foodstuffs produced through both on and off farm activities were highest in farming systems that had more land and more livestock. However, increasing commercialization—defined herein as the increasing importance of crop and livestock sales to farm households—resulted in an overall decline in female control across all farming systems and gender-respondent-household typologies. In contrast, crop and livestock diversification were positively associated with female control across gender-respondent-household typologies. Analysis of specific crops and livestock products across farming systems and respondent typologies revealed women have far greater control over decisions related to consumption than decisions related to sales, although the gap between the two were less pronounced in lesser-valued livestock products (chickens, eggs). However, the analyses suggest that as sale of crops and livestock increase, female control over these areas could likely diminish, regardless of specific activity. The authors conclude that approaches to adapt to or mitigate climate change that rely on increasing market orientation of smallholder production will likely intensify men’s control over benefits from production, whereas diversification will likely have a more positive impact on female control. Thus, climate adaptation strategies promoting increased diversification will likely have a more positive impact on women smallholders than commercialization alone. The authors recommend that when commercialization is the target intervention, it must be accompanied by a gender differentiated analysis of trade-offs and risks to mitigate the potential negative consequences shown in this study.
Climate-Smart Livestock Production Systems in the Midlands and Highlands of Ethiopia
Livestock is an integral part of agriculture and has an important economic, social, and cultural significance in Ethiopia. Climate change affects livestock production by affecting feed and nutrition, water accessibility, and health. Although livestock production plays a huge role in Ethiopia’s economy and food security, poor livestock management practices characterized by unsustainable free grazing and greenhouse gas emissions have had a negative impact on the environment. At the same time, climate change has had tremendous negative impacts on livestock production. In order to reduce the ef-fects of climate change on livestock and enhance environmentally friendly livestock production, it is important to improve livestock management practices and introduce a sustainable grazing system, appropriate policies, and institutional set up. Applying cut-and-carry feeding and agroforestry, along with improved feed and better breed-ing practices offers major opportunities for reducing emissions and increasing the sequestration of greenhouse gases. Moreover, it is necessary to encourage and reward farmers, administrative bodies, and experts who practice the cut-and-carry feeding system suc-cessfully. This chapter elaborates on the application of integrated technical and non-technical “best fit” options for a livestock produc-tion system. The best fit technological options focus on modifying livestock diversity and number and improving management, breed-ing, and feed, while non-technical options include developing and implementing appropriate policies, local bylaws, and indigenous knowledge on livestock production systems. Integrating these ap-proaches, together with effective surveillance and rapid response strategies, as well as use of better breeds with greater resistance to drought and disease vectors, could play a large role in developing adaptation and mitigation strategies and building resilient livestock agriculture in the face of a changing climate.
Multilevel dialogue and planning for improving rangelands in northern Kenya
Social differentiation and climate change adaptation – synthesis report
Due to the climate sensitive nature of cropping and livestock keeping, climate change adaptation hasemerged as a central issue in agricultural/rural development. Even development interventions that arenot focused on climate change adaptation are increasingly called on to be sensitive to the implicationsof climate change impacts. However, many approaches to agricultural adaptation to climate changeremain highly technocentric, for example relying on measures of drought resistance and productivity toindicate adaptiveness without consideration of how a new practice/technology will move through andbe shaped by social spaces of household labor, market access, land use decision making, cultural values,etc. (Crane et al. 2011)
Rapid characterization of organic resource quality for soil and livestock management in tropical agroecosystems using near-infrared spectroscopy
Organic resources constitute a major source of nutrient inputs to both soils and livestock in smallholder tropical production systems. Determination of resource quality attributes using current laboratory methods is both timely and costly. This study tested visible and near-infrared (wavelengths from 0.35–2.50 m) reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) for rapid prediction of quality attributes for a diverse range of organic resources. A spectral library was constructed for 319 samples of oven-dried, ground plant material originating from green leaf (186 samples), litter (33), root (25), and stem (21) samples from 83 species including tropical crops and trees used for agroforestry and manure samples (39). Organic resource attributes were calibrated to first-derivative reflectance using regression trees with stochastic gradient boosting, and screening tests were developed for separating various organic resource quality classes using classification trees. Validation r 2 values for actual vs. predicted values using a 25% holdout sample were 0.91 for N, 0.90 for total soluble polyphenol, and 0.64 for lignin concentration. Screening tests gave validation prediction efficiencies of 96% for detecting samples with high N concentration, 91% for low total soluble polyphenol, and 86% for low lignin concentration. The spectral screening tests were robust even at small (n = 48) calibrations sample sizes. Screening tests for detecting samples with low or high levels of P, K, Ca, and Mg gave prediction efficiencies of 74 to 92%. Near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy can be used to rapidly screen organic resource quality. Global spectral calibration libraries should be established for a range of resource quality attributes.
Communities of Practice: Creating and Sharing Knowledge
The Communities of Practice aim to foster relationships, develop learning situated in practice, and create and share new knowledge to restore degraded land. The goal of the project is to reduce food insecurity and improve livelihoods by restoring degraded land and returning it to effective and sustainable tree, crop and livestock production.
Nitrous Oxide and Methane Fluxes from Urine and Dung Deposited on Kenyan Pastures
Livestock keeping is ubiquitous in tropical Africa. Urine and dung from livestock release greenhouse gases (GHGs), such as nitrous oxide (N2O) and methane (CH4), to the atmosphere. However, the extent of GHG’s impact is uncertain due to the lack of in situ measurements in the region. Here we measured N2O and CH4 emissions from cow urine and dung depositions in two Kenyan pastures that received different amounts of rainfall using static chambers across wet and dry seasons. Cumulative N2O emissions were greater under dung+urine and urine-only patches (P < 0.0001), more than three times higher in the wet compared with the dry season (P < 0.0001), and higher in the farm receiving higher rainfall overall (P < 0.0001). Cumulative CH4 emissions differed across treatments (P = 0.012), driven primarily by soil CH4 uptake from the urine-only treatment. Cumulative N2O emissions were positively related to N input rate in excreta. However, the relationship was linear during the dry season (r2 = 0.99; P = 0.001) and exponential during the wet season (r2 = 0.99; P < 0.0001). Nitrous oxide emission factors were 0.05% (dry season) and 0.18% (wet season) of N in urine and dung+urine, which is less than 10% of the IPCC Default Tier 1 emission factor of 2%. We predict that emissions from cattle urine in Kenya are approximately 1.7 Gg N2O–N yr-1 (FAO estimates 11.9 Gg N2O–N yr-1). Our findings suggest that current estimates may overestimate the contribution of excreta to national GHG emissions and that emission factors from urine and dung need to account for agroecosystems with distinct wet and dry seasons.