Volume 188, 15 April 2014, Pages 150–162
Inter-connection between land use/land cover change and herders’/farmers’ livestock feed resource management strategies: a case study from three Ethiopian eco-environments
- Under a Creative Commons license
Open Access
Highlights
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- Land use/cover change is proceeding in all study sites with increase in crop lands.
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- The feed resource bases are changing from grazing to non-grazing resources.
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- Mobility as feed deficit management strategy of households is decreasing.
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- Feed purchase and conservations as strategy of households are increasing.
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- Transitions from grazing to non-grazing could not meet growing feed demand.
Abstract
We
assessed land use/land cover changes from remotely sensed satellite
imagery and compared this with community perceptions on availability/use
of livestock feed resources and feed deficit management strategies
since the 1973s in three districts representing the pastoral,
agro-pastoral and mixed crop-livestock eco-environments of Ethiopia. We
found that land use/land cover changes are proceeding in all
eco-environments and that transitions are from grasslands, and forest
lands to bush/shrub lands and crop lands in the pastoral site (Liben),
from bush/shrub lands and grasslands to crop lands in agro-pastoral site
(Mieso) and from bush/shrub lands, forest lands and grasslands to crop
lands in the mixed crop-livestock site (Tiyo). The changes significantly
affected livestock feed resources and feed deficit management
strategies available to households. Over the last 30–40 years, grazing
resources available to livestock keepers have been declining with
resultant increase in the contribution of crop residues and other feeds
from crop lands (weeds and crop thinnings) as compared to feeds from
grasslands. The feed deficit management strategies of households are
also changing significantly from mobility to herd management and feed
conservation in the pastoral areas; from mobility to feed conservation
and purchasing of feed in the agro-pastoral areas and from transhumance
to feed conservation and purchase of feed in the mixed crop-livestock
areas. Hence feed resources and their availability vary with time and
eco-environments indicating the need for the development of
eco-environment/site specific feed management strategies in order to
support productive stock in the study areas and similar
eco-environments.
Keywords
- Eco-environment;
- Feed availability;
- Feed deficit management;
- Land use/land cover