Feasibility and Mapping Study for the Development of Forage

Introduction

The purpose of the Feed the Future Ethiopia Transforming Agriculture activity is to increase access to healthy diets, particularly for women and children, by improving competitiveness, inclusiveness, and resilience of the Ethiopian food and agriculture system. Feed the Future Ethiopia Transforming Agriculture operates in 132 woredas to support stronger food systems and build resilience across three results areas:

• Increased availability of safe, diverse, nutritious foods
• Increased incomes in the food and agriculture sectors
• Increased convenience and desirability of safe, diverse, nutritious foods

Background

Sustainable livestock production is highly dependent on factors such as the availability of quality feed and forage resources, production of adequate quantities of good quality forage, better nutrition, genetics. A combination of these strategies is the way to economically overcome livestock feed shortage and improve milk/meat production in Ethiopia.

One of the bottlenecks to increase livestock production in Ethiopia is the shortage of feed for different animal species. Generally, improved forage legumes and browse species provide a sustainable source of protein which enhances the ruminant livestock productivity However, forage is not a widely sown crop in Ethiopia and market demand for high-quality, uniform, seeds and forage is low. This has resulted in very few seed companies dealing with forage in the country. Much of the forage seed production is in the informal or traditional seed sector where farmers do their own selection and seed production to meet their own needs and may also sell or exchange excess seeds within the local community.

Establishing reliable forage production depends on the availability of reliable supplies of quality forage seeds/cuttings (Alemayehu, 1997; FRG, 2008), land availability and locally producing forage seed ensures sustainability and it is found economical. Improved forage availability will contribute to improving animal nutrition resulting in higher producing livestock. It also compliments crop production by maintaining soil fertility through nitrogen fixation.

Assignment Objective

The objective of this assignment is to map existing forage market system actors and develop a proposed strategy to encourage private sector-led forage production (including forage seed supply) for both lowland and highland areas within the Feed the Future Zone of Influence (ZOI). This includes developing a cost benefit analysis to influence the private sector to increase production based on technical and financial requirements for optimal forage production.

• To map forage producers, commercial forage MSMEs to encourage forage production and marketing through private sectors in the lowland irrigated area and highland producer including seed production.
• Develop strategy to improve quality forage seed supply and bring substantial improvements in livestock productivity that results in wider use of improved forage and pasture crops and carbon credits.
• Conduct cost-benefit analysis to establish a technical and financial feasibility study for commercial forage farms to optimize forage production.
• Analyze the current enabling environment for commercial forage production and seed multiplication and suggest possible options to improve policy bottlenecks.

For more information please visit the link: https://www.ethiojobs.net/docs/Revised-SOW_forage_feasiblity.docx