Feed inventory and feed balance of Ethiopia: salient findings and way forward
By Harinder Makkar, Lemma Gizachew, Adugna Tolera, Antonello Salis, Alemu Yami, Alberto Giani, AbdoulKarim Bah and Shukri Ahmed
Livestock sector is vital for food security in Africa as it provides a number of essential nutrients to millions of people. Recent repeated droughts, however, had devastating effects on pastoral and agro-pastoral livelihoods, mainly due to feed and water shortages. This short paper provides information on the availability of biomass for use as animal feed and the feed balance in terms of dry matter (DM), metabolizable energy (ME) and crude protein (CP) for each of the 10 regions of Ethiopia and for the nation. These sets of data are prerequisite for putting in place strategic interventions to meet the feed demand at times of scarcity as well as for making informed decisions for sustainable development of the livestock sector in Ethiopia.
