The study was conducted in Metema District of Amhara Region and the objectives of the study were to assess the major livestock feed resources, to analyze the chemical composition of major feeds, to assess the rangeland condition and investigate the floristic composition and dry matter biomass yields of herbaceous species in the District. The livestock feed resources were assessed by formal and informal survey and analyzed by descriptive statistics.

Study was conducted to assess beef cattle production, management practices and marketing system in Lume district, East Shoa Zone, Oromia. Traditional, semi-intensive and intensive beef cattle production and marketing system were considered for the study. For this purpose 120 respondents were included based on discussions with district livestock experts, 1 kebele for intensive; 2 kebeles from semi-intensive fattening systems were purposively selected as they are the only kebeles practicing intensive and semi-intensive fattening in the district.

This study was undertaken in the crop and livestock production system interactions of smallholders upon fixed and fragmented land holdings in livestock and human populated area of Alaba, Southern Ethiopia with the objective of quantifying the major feed resources and evaluating the efficiency of utilizations of these feeds. General linear model (GLM) was fitted for dry matter yield of private grazing lands of the household in tonnes over covariates household grazing land size and number of households’ livestock in TLU for each type of livestock’s.

The study was done in Adaa district which is one of the 12 districts in East Shoa zone in Oromia regional state of Ethiopia. It is located southeast of Addis Ababa at 38o51’ 43.63’’ to 39o04’ 58.59’’ E and 8o46’ 16.20’’ to 8o59’ 16.38’’ N, on the western margin of the Great East African Rift Valley. The altitude ranges from 1 500 to ? 2 000 meters above sea level. The district has a high potential for mixed livestock and crop production systems.

Production system and marketing study was undertaken using on 120 sample households to identify and describing goat production systems, to determine production potentials, opportunities and challenges of goat’s production and to describe marketing systems. Three The households were drawn from different location and represented three agro-ecologies; Moist Weyina Dega, Dega and Moist Kola.

India has experienced rapid growth in potato production during recent past and the country has almost doubled its potato production during 2003–2013. The potato productivity improved 31.4% over this period of time. However, potato production scenario in southern states of India is quite grim and with the result potato consumers of these states always have to purchase potatoes at very high prices compared to the national average prices.

Bernard Bett, Senior Scientist, ILRI, at the side event, “Measuring and Evaluating Resilience in Drylands of East Africa.” IFPRI 2020 conference on Building Resilience for Food and Nutrition Security, May 15-17, 2014, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. More information at http://www.2020resilience.ifpri.info

Challenge Program Water and Food: Basin Focal Project NIGER

Faced with increasing food and water insecurity as a result of climatic and

anthropogenic (demography, land use) changes, the CGIAR Challenge Program

for Water and Food commissioned research in 10 river basins to study the links

between water, food and poverty. Looking at the Niger river basin, we carry out

a diagnosis of the hydrologic and agronomic potential, before attempting to

identify how good agricultural water management may reduce vulnerability in the

The Basin Focal Project Volta (BFP Volta) was developed along three main steps:

Assessment of present conditions of the distribution of rural poverty, of farming

systems with their productivity and water productivity;

Analysis of opportunities and risks, especially under the double pressure of demography

and possible climate change, and modeling of water resources to identify sensitivity of

water allocation to development and climate scenarios; and

Identification of research gaps and implementation plan.