Application of TechFit for prioritization of feed technologies for small holder sheep production system Debre Birhan Group

Introduction Feed scarcity is a major problem that limits animals productivity. Livestock is important to ensure food security and livelihood of the farming community in North Shoa as the area is prone to drought, frost and erratic rainfall. In the study villages, sheep is the dominant livestock species.

Improvement in livestock productivity can be achieved by alleviating feed constraints. A number of feed technologies have been developed and introduced so far. The extent and level of adoption of these technologies is very limited.

TechFit is used to filter among the available technologies and prirotorize best bet technologies from available technologies This preliminary study was conducted to score the context of farmers vis a vis land, labor, availability of cash/credit, input delivery system, and skill of the farmer for technology adoption and demand of the technology for the above listed attributes.

Materials and methods A survey was conducted in two districts of North Shoa, (Menz-Gera and Angolelana - Tera). The sample districts were selected purposively using secondary data and the production system. Based on the recommendation of BoA two villages per district were selected.

Age, sex and wealth status (determined by size of land holdings) were considered in selection of participating farmers. In Menz-Gera information was collected from 20 and 15 farmers of Dargegene and Sina Amba kebeles respectively In Angoleleana Tera district 12 farmers from each of Chefanen and Chacha kebeles were used.

Potential technologies were filtered using farmers context and technology attribute scores Check list was used to collect information about the context attributes of farmers and the farmers gave scores to the context attributes The collected data were fitted to TechFit template to rank the technologies. Feed technologies were evaluated based on land, labor, credit, input delivery system, and farmer skill.

Results and discussion Out of the thirty six technologies, the most applicable fifteen were filtered by the template In all villages the rank of the selected technologies were more or less similar. This is to be expected since availability of land, labor, cash, input delivery system, and farmer skill used to evaluate the technologies were similar.

Table 2. Selected feed technologies and rank given by the TechFit tool from Menz-Gera and Angolelana -Tera districts of North Shoa Technology optionsRanking of technologies by TechFit tool Menz-GeraAnogolelana Tera DargegneSinaAmbaChekiChefanen Crop residue improvement Hand chopping 2233 Generous feeding of CRs 2322 Feeding home grown legume residue 1111

Table 2 cont’d Technology options Ranking of technologies by TechFit tool Menz-GeraAnogolelana Tera DargegnSinaAmbaChekiChefane Supplementation Home produced local brewery waste 1212 Bought in local brewery waste 3545 Agro-industrial by-products 4656 Use of leaves and/or pods of farm trees 2334

Table 2 cont’d Technology options Ranking of technologies by TechFit tool Menz-GeraAnogolelana Tera DargegneSinaAmbaChekiChefanen Feed conservation Hay natural pasture 7888 Hay cultivated pasture 8999 Improved forages Fodder trees 5767 Annual grass/legumes 7888

Table 2 cont’d Technology options Ranking of technologies by TechFit tool Menz-GeraAnogolelana Tera DargegSinaAmbaChekiChefanen Feeds from cropping system Intercropping 4646 Use of weeds 3434 Balancing feeds Smart feeding 9677 Completed feed 10699

The results clearly indicated that use of home grown legume residue ranked top among the technology options. An important merit of “home grown legume residue” is it is a by-product and does not require land which is in short supply and use family labor to thresh, stack, and feed animals.

Use of local brewery waste and bought in brewery ranked first at Dargegne and Cheki and stand second at Sinamaba and Chefanen indicating the role that the feeds are playing in this specific areas. These feed resources do not also require land and cash either to produce or buy as they are a by-product of home produced local brewery.

Generous feeding of crop residues ranked second in the three villages apart Sinamba, and hand chopping of residues ranked second and third in Menz and Angolela districts respectively. This indicates the sensitivity of the technologies for land and cash which are in short supply. And availability of family labor and skill to accomplish the task.

Among the technologies the least ranked ones are those technologies which require land, labor and credit. eg Natural pasture and Cultivated pasture from feed conservation category Though natural pasture is produced from naturally occurring plants the technology ranked least as it requires proportionally large area and labor to produce it. Another example is from Balancing feeds Complete feed ranked the least as it demands – cash/ credit – input delivery system.

Conclusion The technology filter and ranks the given technologies well against the attributes given. And will be fine if the farmer had a chance to evaluate each technology against each attributes.

Limitations of TechFit Ranking of technologies is not with in each category. The list of technologies is not exhaustive. Institutions that generate and disseminate technologies should participate in listing of available technologies for different agro- ecologies. Some technologies are too specific.

Lessons learned Assisted to prioritize available feed technologies for the agro-ecology