Feed Resource Bases and Farmers’ Perceived Uses of Grain Legume Haulms in the Mixed Crop-Livestock Farming System of Ethiopia

Abstract

Survey was conducted from January 2016 to March 2016 to assess feed resource bases and grain legume haulms use practices in the mixed crop-livestock farming system of Ethiopia. Three districts (Ada’a, Sinana and Damot-Gale) were selected purposively based on their accessibility and intensity of crop production from the mixed farming areas. Then, single visit formal survey was conducted to collect data from 90 purposively selected grain legume producers. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics in SPSS software. The results revealed significant difference (P<0.05) among study districts in livestock holding per household and overall mean livestock holding was 5.86±0.42 TLU per head. Except grazing land, total land size and land allocated for different uses were significantly (P<0.05) different among the districts. The results showed that crop residues (33.3%, consisting of cereal residues 23.8% and legume haulms 9.5%), natural pastures (22.6%), stubble grazing (18.1%), non-conventional feeds (11.7%, composed of Enset leaves, farmyard weeds, poultry litter, grain screening), cut and carry forages (8.3%), agro industrial byproducts (5.3%) and hay (0.7%) were the feed resources available in the three districts. The main use of grain legume haulms was as source of livestock feed (76.3%) and about 89.8% of the interviewed farmers reported increasing trends of using haulms as a livestock feed in the studied districts. Mixing of haulms with cereal straws during feeding and conservation of the haulms for dry period use were practiced by 62.2% and 60.1% of the respondents, respectively.To boost the role of grain legumes production in the mixed crop-livestock production system of Ethiopia, smallholder farmers’ need to be supported technically and institutionally with promotion of technologies which have potential to improve grain human and haulm animal nutrition traits.