Increasing milk production from cattle in Tibet

• Tibet Academy of Agricultural and Animal Sciences, China
• Tibet Livestock Research Institute, China

Dairy products, notably milk and butter, are traditionally important foods in the Tibetan diet. Demand for these products, particularly milk, continues to rise, driven by changing consumption patterns and, secondly, population growth. Local supply has fallen well behind demand, with increasing reliance on imports. Milk production has traditionally relied on yaks grazed in pastoral lands outside central Tibet Autonomous Region. Recently yak numbers have begun to decline, with cow's milk making up much of the production gap. Production in pastoral areas has also declined, with an increased expectation that central Tibet Autonomous Region's crop-livestock zone will make up for this shortfall.
A specialist dairy sector would help boost production by an estimated minimum of 20 per cent. This can be achieved by improved feeds with greater nutritional value being made available to cattle. Livestock are largely fed crop residues (straw) and crop by-products and grazed on grasses and weeds, along with crop regrowth. This is poor nutrition and limits milk production. Improved feeding systems based around the effective utilisation of crop residues and by-products, better silage management practices, information on yearly feed availability and knowledge of responses to different feeds should achieve the 20 per cent boost in dairy production needed to meet supply and establish a specialist dairy sector.

The project major objective was to improve cattle nutrition and thus increase milk production, leading to better income from mixed crop/livestock farms of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR).

Constraints to production had first to be identified before development of feeding (and management) strategies that would be practical and economical to implement. The first activity was to undertake a review of available information on milk production from cattle (milk is also produced from yak, sheep and goats) in Tibet and any previous research. This was followed by benchmarking studies on-farm to define the current production system and identify opportunities for improvements. The scientists characterised the feed resources available and those in use.
The research team then undertook nutrition research to develop better feeding systems for milk production. Other work included capacity building, including training of staff and development of facilities. Some Tibetan scientists were trained in nutrition research in Australia.
Project findings were extended to facilitate their adoption by farmers. Extension officers were trained in basic cattle nutrition, and their training led to demonstrations for farmers.

To identify constraints, a benchmark study was undertaken as the major activity of the project. Feed resources were characterised (type and availability) and data were collected to describe milk production and key parameters of reproduction. The most consistent and relevant finding of the benchmark study was the high reliance on cereal straws as the basis of most diets, and this was rarely supplemented sufficiently to provide adequate feed quality in total dietary intake. Associated with the generally poor nutritional status was depressed performance in all production parameters - low milk production (average ~ 5-6 kg/cow/day), low fertility (average 69% calving rate), low birthweights of calves (average 20-25 kg) associated with poor survival rates (average 64%) and followed by low growth rates (average 0.2-0.3 kg/day).
Although inadequate nutrition had been implicated as a major problem prior to this project, the research team gained a firm basis on which strategies for improvement (feed budgeting, forage production, diet composition, etc) could be developed. Apart from providing the benchmark data, the project has had significant immediate impact in promoting awareness of the nutritional scenario restricting current production and the principles to be applied in designing remedial strategies. In this regard, an unexpected outcome of great importance was the potential to influence local policy makers and funding agencies in deciding the best way(s) to improve production and alleviate farm family poverty. It appeared that previous and current decisions were often based on little or inappropriate advice on aspects of animal nutrition and production, and therefore unlikely to be biologically or economically effective. The feedback suggests that this project has already had considerable impact in this direction within a short time frame, a significant benefit from the ACIAR investment.
The project built on the local capacity to improve agricultural production by improving the skills of the scientists and field staff and provision of infrastructure. The upgrading of capacity for feed quality evaluation (including staff training and expansion of techniques) is vital for future research, as animal nutrition is without doubt the most important immediate area to be addressed in removing constraints to production. The animal house built at TLRI with ACIAR and local funds is the first and only facility of its kind in Tibet and of a global standard for conducting nutrition experiments. This will be pivotal to the key research required to evaluate feed quality, animal responses to varying feed regimes, examining responses of different genotypes and many other components required in the process of developing efficient and sustainable feeding and production systems. The facility will be available for use in many other projects and thus is a major asset for Tibetan animal research into the future.
Following the external review of the project, it was recommended that ACIAR fund a further project to build on the outcomes here, as well as those of the contemporary ACIAR agronomy project (CIM/2002/093), in a systems approach to improving livestock and agronomic production. The follow-on project (LPS/2006/119 - Integrated crop and dairy systems in Tibet Autonomous Region, PR China) commenced in April 2008.