Brewer’s Spent Yeast Accessibility, Preservation, Storage and Feeding Practices of Smallholder Farmers’ along Major Breweries in Ethiopia

Abstract

Smallholder farmers often replace liquid brewer’s spent yeast (LBSY) with
conventionally used but costly protein sources despite associated poor management and
feeding practices. This study was conducted in three purposively selected districts
(Bedele and Gelan, in Oromia Regional State) and (Wereda-11, in Akaki Kality sub city
in the Addis Ababa city administration) from April to June, 2022 to assess the
accessibility, preservation, storage, and feeding practices of LBSY along major
breweries in Ethiopia. Two peasant associations (PAs) from each district were
purposively selected. Among LBSY beneficiary respondents a total of 182 household
(HH) respondents were selected and individually interviewed using random sampling
techniques. The study revealed that the frequency of LBSY supply was not significantly
(P>0.05) varied across the study districts with 49.5% of the respondents across the
study distracts accessing LBSY only once a week while 26.4, 17.6, and 6.6% of the
respondents reportedly receiving it once per two weeks, once per three weeks and once
per month, respectively. The farm gate purchasing price of LBSY was in the range of
1.00-1.19 birr per liter with increasing trend within the last five years across the study
districts. The majority of respondents (81.3%) across the study districts responded to
having obtained LBSY from local retailers. Plastic barrel was majorly used by
respondents in Wereda-11 (92.2%) and Gelan (93.1%) but 93.6% of respondents in
Bedele used Jeri cans of 20 liter capacity for LBSY storage. Preservation of LBSY under
aqueous saline environment was a common practice to 76.6 and 60.3% of respondents
in Wereda-11and Gelan districts, respectively. According to 67.5, 58.7, and 54.4% of
the respondents in Wereda-11, Bedele, and Gelan districts, respectively roughage diets
are treated with LBSY in mixture with salt, and water before feeding their animals.
More than 82% of the respondents across all the study districts reported that mixing
with feed ingredients was the major mode of offering LBSY to the diet of the animals.
There were significant (P<0.05) variations in milk production performance of dairy
cows across study districts with 60.2% of the respondents were able to observe
incremental changes in milk production capacity of their cows when maintained on
LBSY based rations. Similarly, higher proportions (71.4%) of the respondents across
the study districts, reported as there were no changes in milk quality with LBSY
supplementation. In conclusion, accessibility of LBSY, costs, transportation, and lack of
feeding practices were the major challenges of smallholder farmers when it comes to the
feeding practices of LBSY to the different livestock species in the study districts