Contribute to the development of an ILRI strategy on feed and forage research for development. Continue reading
Author Archives: Alan Duncan
LegumeCHOICE tool helps prioritize legume options in developing country smallholder systems
The Legume CHOICE tool is a systematic approach which lists the various legume options available to farmers and prioritizes them for particular communities. Continue reading
FEAST feed intervention tech sheets
The Feed Assessment Tool (FEAST) helps us to understand how local livestock are kept and fed. Standardized data visualizations give a good overview of where feed comes from, how it varies seasonally and what farmers view as the main problems and opportunities for feed improvement.
As part of this exercise, we produced a series of around 30 short Tech Sheets which provide a brief description of the main feed intervention options for developing world smallholder/pastoral systems. These help users to visualize possible options and understand how they fit varying local conditions. Continue reading
The Feed Assessment Tool (FEAST) – new developments
The Feed Assessment Tool (FEAST) helps us to understand how local livestock are kept and fed. Standardized data visualizations give a good overview of where feed comes from, how it varies seasonally and what farmers view as the main problems and opportunities for feed improvement. In recent years, around 1000 people have downloaded the app. Here’s an update on a few recent developments with FEAST that may be of interest. Continue reading
Innovation platforms for dairy development in India and Tanzania
Multi-stakeholder innovation platforms were set up at different levels as part of the milkIT project, resulting in more milk sales, more interactions and better linkages among different value chain actors in India, and, in Tanzania, access to a larger variety of better feeds. This video explains how the milkIT project worked with innovation platforms Continue reading
Smallholder dairying: better marketing or better feeding – which comes first?
The milkIT project hypothesis was that improvements in milk markets would lead to increased productivity by farmers. This video explains the approaches followed: linking farmers to markets (using market ‘pull’ to drive productivity increases) and farmers’ productivity increases which will attract the market to them. Continue reading
Working out how to improve livestock feeding: The FEAST feed assessment tool
The Feed Assessment Tool (FEAST) was one of the key tools used in the milkIT project to assess local feed resource availability and use, guiding targeting and appropriate intervention strategies. This video explains how FEAST was used in the project: Continue reading