Multi-Actors’ Platform Inception Workshop on Livestock Feeding Held at Hawassa Rori International Hotel.
On the occasion, Dr. Wuletaw Abera, a Land Restoration Scientist, made a well-coming speech and said that the perennial grassland mixture project is a novel approach to forage and food production, land restoration, and enhance climate resilience production in Ethiopia by exacerbating farming soil and grassing land degradation.
Dr. Wuletaw underlined that about 85% of the total land in Ethiopia suffered from moderate to series levels of land degradation price more than 4.3 billion US dollars per year. The problem is grave in the Ethiopian high lands where livestock is predominantly managing in a mixed crop-livestock system. But, the number of farmers using improved pastures is relatively low at less than 14%. Therefore, this project aims to mitigate the challenge. He added that about 90% of livestock feed is currently derived from shared grazing on community pasturelands whereas these communal lands are highly overgrazed.
A Soil Scientist at Hawassa University, Dr. Shimelis Gizachew, said that there are no studies, from Africa, that examine the effects of grassland mixtures containing diverse tropical grasses combined with legumes on forage and food crop yields. In addition, this project supports combing the intensification of livestock feed systems and the betterment of farmer livelihoods with land restoration.
According to the information, the new project designed to mitigate the problem started working with Bahir Dar and Hawassa Universities in collaboration with the Norwegian University of life Science, Trinity College Dublin, and International livestock research institute (ILRI).
On the half-day multi-Actor platform held at Rori international Hotel Hawassa, all stockholders from Sidaama regional state agricultural bureau, soil scientists, and livestock nutrition experts were attendants of the workshop. At a time, the participants conducted a valuable discussion and exchanged ideas on the platform.
