Ilca Research Report Livestock Water Needs In Pastoral Africa In Relation To Climate And Forage

Agro-ecological zones of sub-Saharan Africa; ILCA in Africa; Important mile-stones in ILCA's history; Origins and mandate; The proposed shape of the Centre; Location of the Centre; Task forces and their reports; The early years: focus on systems descriptions; Systems research; Agro-ecological zones; Zonal research programmes; Studies in the highlands; Studies in the humid zone; Studies in the subhumid zone; Studies in the semi-arid zone; Monitoring development projects; Complementary studies; Training and information; First quinquennial review of ILCA; Systems description and component research: ILCA's programme matures; Highlands; Humid zone; Subhumid zone; Semi-arid zone; Ethiopian rangelands; Kenyan rangelands; Central research and support units; Training and information; A new focus to ILCA's research; ILCA's strategy and long-term plan; From strategy to medium-term plan; ILCA's programme, 1987-93; Cattle milk and meat thrust; Small ruminant meat and milk thrust; Animal traction thrust; Animal feed resources thrust; Trypanotolerance thrust; Livestock policy and resource use thrust; ILCA's second medium-term plan, 1994-98; Factors influencing ILCA's second medium-term plan; Developing the programme; ILCA's seven programme themes; MTP reviewed and approved; Moves towards a global livestock research institute; Livestock steering committee; Moves towards a new shape; Benefits for livestock producers world-wide.

Focusing on mixed crop-livestock farming systems of sub-Saharan Africa, this review brings together the available knowledge in the various components of the livestock and water sectors. Through an analysis of livestock-water interactions, promising strategies and interventions to improve Livestock Water Productivity are proposed. In the biophysical domain, the numerous interventions relate to feed, water and animal management. These are interlinked with interventions in the socio-political-economic domain. The paper identifies critical research and development gaps in terms of methodologies for quantifying water productivity and integrating different scales, and also in terms of institutions and policies.

ILCA's policy towards modelling in the framework of livestock systems research; models and the analysis of productivity in extensive livestock systems in Israel; prediction of actual primary production under nitrogen limitation; behavioural aspects of intake at pasture in ruminats; prediction of feed intake in ruminats; relationships between chemical composition and voluntary intake of feeds by sheep and cattle; the effect of breeding season duration on production and feed consumption in grazing beef cattle in the south of Israel; adaptation of the Kahan model for a mixed farming system in southeastern Asia; appraisal of the ILCA cattle herd dynamics model using data from pastoral systems in mali and kenya; moddeling pastoral livestock production: problems and prospect; analysis of management impact in semi-arid agropastoral systems; modelling economic outcomes of livestock production systems; selection of sheep husbandy techologies under single and multiple goal constraints; types, purposes and users of models; problems related do intake.