Abstract

The study was carried out in Maale Woreda, in South Western Ethiopia aimed to assess feed resource, feed resource availability and feed production constraints. Six Kebeles per Woreda were selected and one focus group discussion which comprised 12 pastoralists per kebele were identified and interviewed. For the key informants’ interview, two livestock production experts from Woreda Livestock and Fisher Resource development Office and six livestock developmental agents from representative kebeles were interviewed. The focus group discussion and key informants interview was used to collect primary data on feed resource, feed resource availability, feed conservation practices and feed resources utilization and major livestock feed constraints. The study results shown that grass from the open grazing land, indigenous browse species and crop residues were major feed resources for the livestock in to study area. The open grazing land had poorly managed and the biomass productivity generated from open grazing land has been retreated. The major livestock feeding system was free grazing and Agro pastoral communities had no trends of conserved feed and provided concentrate supplements to the livestock. There were lack of low quality feed improvement and trends of growing the cultivated fodder species production practices. The 83,783.60 tons of dry matter was produced from different feed resources in the Maale Woreda with deficit of 623,333.40 tons of dry matter per year. The climate change, expansion of cropping land, increments in human populations, lack of inputs and training were identified as livestock feed production constraints in to study area. The migration, supplementations and purchasing available feed were important coping strategies toward feed shortage in to study area. Generally, the results from this study demonstrated that the total dry matter produced from different feed resources in to the study area was not enough to satisfy the dry matter requirement of livestock to support the profitable livestock production in to the study area, which suggest that the primary focus needs to be improving the existing feed resources through rehabilitation of degraded grazing areas, introduction adaptable fodder production, improving feed utilization practices and introduce and promote the crop residue feed improvement technologies.

Keywords: Agro pastoralists; Feed resource; Feed availability, Feed constraints