In Quang Ngai Province and other areas of central Vietnam increasing the incomes of smallholder farmers is an important avenue to development. Smallholders have indicated that cattle rearing and finishing were the most desired income-generating activity. There is considerable market potential for selling cattle, but knowledge on cattle feeding systems is limited. ACIAR has supported research in this area which resulted in a workshop, during which both the income potential and value of future research were confirmed.
Cattle numbers in 2000 in Quang Ngai were calculated at 224,000. Strong beef prices in the main urban areas and overall increases in national consumption have created a market that will continue to demand more beef. Cattle fattening in Quang Ngai Province has attractive returns to labour costs, but still faces some constraints to wider uptake.
Access to credit is a major constraint, as is farmer knowledge of cattle nutrition, production and health. Feeding options based around on-farm resources and supplemented by off-farm protein sources can reduce existing input costs, partially alleviating credit constraints. The project did not, however, delve into credit access, instead focusing on feeding systems in their entirety. It linked with the Quang Ngai Rural Development Program to ensure sustainability of extension activities beyond the life of the project.
The objective of this project was to improve the profitability of finishing cattle by the development of year-round feeding strategies, utilising on- and off-farm feed resources.
The availability of feeds in Quang Ngai and their nutritive characteristics were established through a desk top analysis of the feed resources available to smallholder lowland farms in Quang Ngai and a literature review on nutritive characteristics of available feeds. A year-round feed supply inventory was developed and field tested.
Controlled experiments to optimise use of feed resources for productivity and profitability began with a literature review that examined the implications of associative effects between feeds on metabolisable energy values. Experiments to quantify associative effects between forages and supplements were conducted along with feeding experiments. Then feeding options in lowland farming systems were verified through on-farm demonstration/development and extension activities in Vietnam.
Throughout the project an emphasis was placed on increasing the knowledge and technical skills of scientists and extension staff in both Vietnam and Australia.
A project coordinating committee (PCC) comprising project staff and representatives of Rural Development Program (RUDEP), the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and the National Institute of Animal Husbandry ensured the scientific integrity and relevance of activities to the needs of stakeholders in Quang Ngai. The PCC enabled the project partners to build strong relationships with these stakeholders, and this provided a platform for future 'out scaling' of the technologies that were tested.
The research in Vietnam developed inventories of feeds available in Quang Ngai and a database of their nutritive characteristics. The work also provided local supplementary feeding response data that are valuable for predicting liveweight gain to feeding options and for estimating likely profitability. The responses were consistent with known principles of ruminant nutrition, and future research could investigate reducing the amount of protein in formulated concentrates as a means of containing feed costs.
The participatory on-farm research activities confirmed that the concentrate feeding options developed and tested could be applied in rural households, were more profitable than existing feeding systems, and were well received by farmers. The participatory approach provided an effective model for achieving adoption and understanding the complex farmer/service provider interface, which is often a barrier to technology transfer. The approach also enhanced the relationships between cattle producers and service providers in the target commune.
The planned capacity development was achieved through a combination of formal training activities and on-the job learning. As this was a Category 2 ACIAR project, farm-level impacts have largely been limited to farmer participants in project activities and their immediate neighbours.
The research focus in Australia was on understanding associative effects between grain supplements and grazed forage in dairy cows as a component of improving feed conversion efficiency on dairy farms. Literature reviews and the cow nutrition experiments highlighted the challenges faced in using metabolisable energy systems appropriately when providing advice to dairy farmers.
Links:
[1] http://www.aciar.gov.au/country/Vietnam
[2] http://www.aciar.gov.au/programarea/Livestock Production Systems