L.P. Nkhonjera
Department of Animal Health and Industry, Malawi
Abstract
Introduction
Constraints
Strategies to improve the efficiency in utilisation of agricultural by-products
Examples of programmes to demonstrate improved utilisation of by-products
Conclusion
References
The constraints in the efficient utilisation of agricultural byproducts have been poor quality of the by-products, financial limitations for the procurement of chemicals and reagents and inadequate qualified manpower to carry on analytical work. Associated with this are inadequate laboratories and other facilities, lack of documented work on previous research work on the nutritive value of these feed resources making it impossible to derive suitable feed combinations for the various nutrient requirements. In general a strategy to promote the utilisation of by-products has been lacking and consequently affecting the development of the livestock industry. Intensive livestock production systems are currently implemented on a stratified model on a small scale. However simple formulated rations on a small scale have been used in beef cattle fattening and daily cattle feeding. The resulting daily liveweight gain of 1 kg and milk yields of up to 16 litres respectively have been encouraging. Lambs fattened on groundnut haulms and maize bran have shown daily weight gain of 112 g.
The policy of the Government of Malawi is to be self-sufficient in food and sell the surplus. In the field of livestock efforts are concentrated on developing and intensifying rural animal production to provide adequate animal products with the objectives to improve the diet of the population and raise the rural income.
Malawi is a land-locked country with a total land area of 119,140 sq. km. Twenty percent of this land is under water. Of the remainder, 25 percent is steep land with slopes of 12.5 percent and above.
At present there is very little unused land that can be opened up for cultivation. Whatever little there is, it is generally confined to parts of the less densely populated Northern region. The livestock population is 1,010,659 cattle, 165,482 sheep and 789,300 goats. The ratio of man to cattle is 7:1 indicating the likely future shortages of meat if cattle remain to be its main source. Some attention is given to improving the productivity of the small stock. Goats and sheep are being improved under a crossbreeding programme and evaluations made of their performance. The suitable breeding stock will in turn be sold to smallholder farmers. A future programme to be promoted along with sheep farming would be fattening of lambs on agricultural by-products as the feed base. A lamb-fattening trial on the same feed base is being carried out to evaluate the performance. The overall objective is to promote a strategy whereby breeding is undertaken in rural grazing areas whereas stock would be finished on agricultural by-products in arable farming areas.
This paper describes the contributing factors to the inefficient utilisation of by-products that the country has experienced and ways of overcoming them.
As already mentioned, the agricultural policy has emphasised on increased crop production. This has led to an increase in crop residues and other by-products on smallholder farms and estates, in milling companies, breweries and other processing organisations. These byproducts are likely to assist in increasing the carrying capacity of the land.
The grazing lands in Malawi are at or near their sustainable carrying capacity. There is therefore an increasing need to provide supplementary feed to sustain and improve animal protein production. Crop and agro-industrial byproducts thus have a significant contribution to make as a cheap and renewable source of animal feed.
The following constraints are reckoned the most important limitations to utilise agricultural byproducts with maximum efficiency. Table 1 shows the quantities of agricultural by-products Malawi produces.
Table 1. Basic statistics on the production of crop residues and crop by-products (tonnes).
|
Crop |
Area planted |
Kernel production |
Crop residue production |
Bran/cakes (ha) |
|
Maize |
1,144,850 |
1,355,200 |
2,710,400 |
433,664 |
|
Rice |
20,807 |
34,265 |
34,265 |
3,426 |
|
Wheat |
1,126 |
787 |
787 |
197 |
|
Groundnuts |
135,966 |
62,240 |
62,240 |
31,140 |
Source: Munthali and Dzowela (1987).
Nutritive values of these feed resources can be improved by chemical treatments as it is done elsewhere. This approach has certain limitations and implications:
1. Well-equipped laboratories are required to analyse untreated and treated feed resources.2. The result of feeding treated feeds would be animal products at unaffordable prices. This would further result in a reduction in protein intake.
3. There is an acute shortage of qualified staff to measure and categorise the nutritive value of all crops and agricultural by-products. In addition chemicals and reagents to be used are also expensive.
4. Besides the research work done in the early 1960s on nutritive value of maize bran, maize stover and groundnut haulms, there is no documented information on these values or their combinations to provide the level of or nutrients required by the respective classes of livestock. The consequence of this is that livestock have been inadequately fed and hence delayed to reach slaughter weights.
5. Availability of these by-products is limited to areas favoured with a climate suited to crop production. In most cases these areas may not necessarily be blessed with livestock resources or good market infrastructures.
6. There is in general lack of a clearly defined overall strategy in the utilisation of agricultural byproducts. As a result emphasis on diversification has lacked and that livestock programmes have not been well integrated in crop farming.
The by-products of maize stover, maize bran, rice bran, wheat middlings, cottonseed cake and molasses are becoming more abundant to be used as ingredients in cheap livestock rations. The following measures are being taken in order to promote the utilisation of these by-products:
1. Emphasis is on stratification of livestock production and integration into the cropping systems so as to minimise competition for resources, and to promote stable mixed farming as well as to optimise production of scarce animal protein.2. Use of agricultural by-products in animal feeding is optimised to overcome periods of feed shortage and at the same time to ensure a constant supply of livestock products throughout the year.
3. The setting up of livestock feed mixing companies close to arable cropping areas is encouraged.
4. The long existing companies have compounded rations from ingredients which are products of milling and oil companies and abattoirs while importing vitamineral premixes. The supply of these ingredients is not constant. At the same time imported ingredients are expensive. The larger proportion of the livestock industry is rural-based. The economics of marketing do not however encourage the use of these expensive commercial feeds. In some parts of the country which are close to sugar companies and cotton-growing areas, rations are being compounded for use by smallholder farmers. Table 2 shows an example of a ration compounded near the source of ingredients.
Table 2. Composition of the smallholder dairy ration.
|
Ingredient |
Kg/100 kg of concentrate |
CP % |
Kg TDN % |
|
Urea |
1.0 |
2.7 |
- |
|
Cottonseed cake |
25.0 |
10.0 |
18.2 |
|
Molasses |
10.0 |
0.4 |
6.8 |
|
Maize bran |
61.0 |
5.5 |
47.6 |
|
Monocalcium phosphate |
2.0 |
- |
- |
|
Salt |
1.0 |
- |
- |
|
|
100.0 |
18.6 |
73.6 |
Source: Cattle Feedlot Company, Malawi, 1986.
The main concentrate in dairy feeding for a long time has been maize bran with crude protein percentages ranging from 8-10.7. The ration in Table 2 provides crude protein of 18.6. Average daily milk yields of 7 kg when feeding dairy cows on maize bran have increased to 16 kg when cows of high milk yielding breed are fed on the ration.
5. The farmers have been organised into groups to ease feed transport problems associated with distance. An individual would find it impossible and expensive to hire a vehicle to collect feeds. It has become possible on a co-operative basis.
Under range conditions the average daily liveweight gain of 0.23 kg has been recorded (Department of Animal Health and Industry, Malawi, unpublished). When fed on agricultural products of maize stover (3.2% CP) and groundnut haulms (11.2% CP) recorded daily-weight gain averaged 0.5 kg (Agyemang and Nkhonjera, 1984). The daily weight gain of 1 kg which is commonly recorded at the Cattle Feedlot Company demonstrates that a possibility still exists to improve the efficiency of utilisation of agricultural by-products under smallholder programmes. The ration composed of molasses, bagasse, cottonseed cake, rice husks, cottonseed husks, wheat offals and hominy cop is a rich one. This ration could also be available for use by smallholder feeder farmers.
Dairy farming and cattle fattening have been implemented for sometime now, though at a small scale. However, as the country's demand for lamb and mutton has not been satisfied, sheep and goat farming is being promoted along with lamb fattening in areas not covered by any of the above systems. Use is made of by-products that have been lying idle in the past.
This approach would obviously encourage the expansion of intensive livestock production systems in areas with abundant supply of by-products. The performance of lambs of various breeds is shown in Table 3.
Table 3. The results of a lamb-fattening trial under smallholder conditions.
|
No. of animals in breed group |
Issue |
DWG |
|
|
|
||
|
wt |
Final |
both to |
DWG |
|
|
|
|
|
(x) |
wt |
start of |
trial |
HWD |
CDW |
Killing 1/2 |
|
|
(kg) |
(kg) |
(g/d) |
(g/d) |
(kg) |
(kg) |
|
|
|
Local (18) |
17.5 |
28.8 |
62 |
105 |
11.9 |
11.7 |
41.1 |
|
Dolpe x Local (4) |
15.0 |
29.5 |
58.0 |
149 |
10.7 |
10.4 |
36.4 |
|
Dorper (6) SD |
14.9 |
26.9 |
73 |
111 |
11.2 |
11.1 |
41.4 |
|
All breeds (28) |
16.7 |
28.5 |
64 |
112 |
11.6 |
11.4 |
40.5 |
DWG = daily weight gain.
HDW = hot pressed weight.
CDW = cold dressed weight.
Source: Sill and Munyenyembe (1986).
On a fattening period of 107 days the animals gained on average 112 g. The killing-out percentage was 41% on average. All animals were graded choice and some prime (the top most grades). An expansion of such programmes makes it easier to utilise the by-products where they are not in use.
The Government in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has currently conceived a project to improve the utilisation of crop and agro-industrial by-products in animal feeding. Some of the activities to be carried out are:
1. Conducting a comprehensive and qualitative survey of feed value present and potential crop and agro-industrial byproducts suitable for animal feeding.2. Assessing the capacity and identifying the needs of the Department of Animal Health and Industry to enable it to meet its requirements for the utilisation of animal byproducts.
3. Sending staff overseas for training on the processes involved in the utilisation of byproducts.
4. Formulating by-product utilisation strategies using standard feed analysis tables and local laboratory analysis including on-farm testing.
The availability of agricultural by-products is justified by the level of agricultural development in the country. This provides the greatest opportunity for the development of a livestock programme that would use these by-products as livestock feed. The Department and related institutions are concentrating their attention on defining the most economic and acceptable ways of utilising these by-products because the future of the livestock industry is likely to depend on them.
Agyemang, K. and Nkhonjera, L.P. 1984. Evaluation of crossbred cattle productivity on the smallholder dairy farms and on government farms in the Republic of Malawi. A joint report by the Government of Malawi and the International Livestock Centre for Africa. ILCA, Addis Ababa. 81 pp.
Department of Animal Health and Industry, Malawi. 1984. Evaluation of the Mjinge and utilisation scheme. (A paper for official use by the department).
Munthali, J.T. and Dzowela, B. 1987. Inventory of livestock feeds in Malawi. In: J.A. Kategile, A.N. Said and B H Dzowela (eds), Animal feed resources for small-scale livestock producers. Proceedings of the Second PANESA Workshop held in Nairobi, Kenya, 11-15 November 1985. IDRC-MR 165e. International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Ontario.
Musa, F.A.; Nkhonjera, L.P. and Mkandawire, R.C.J. 1986. Productivity of dairy cows under smallholder farms based on agro by-products. Working paper presented at the African Research Network on utilisation of agricultural by-products.
Nkhonjera, L.P.; Agyemang, K. and Butterworth, M. 1987. The performance of cattle stall fed for beef in Malawi. Tropical Agriculture (Trinidad) 64 (2): 105-110.
Preston, T.R. and Leng, R.A. 1986. Matching livestock production systems to available resources. Pretesting edition. ILCA, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. 331 pp.
Sill, O. and Munyenyembe, R.A.D. 1986. Fat lamb production under smallholder conditions. Unpublished report for official use by Malawi Government.
