Livestock_feed_tools2016

CRP Livestock / Livestock and Fish Meeting to scope the tropical feeds and forages knowledge base GIZ, Eschborn, 24 October 2016


 * Hotel booking:**
 * Hotel Bommersheim**, Hauptstrasse 418, 65760 Eschborn-Niederhöchstadt, http://www.hotel-bommersheim.de/en

GIZ. This is a 10 Minute walk from the hotel down the main road Hauptstrasse. You will reach house two and you need to walk across the railway tracks to house one. Sabina Lanning will be at the reception and wait for the participants to arrive. On that day we have a smaller meeting room in house 1 (ED 11070) in the first floor just above the reception desk. Sabina will collect the key at the reception and open for you. You will find a projector (installed fix), pinboards, flipchart and visualization material.
 * Meeting venue:**

Michael P Michael B Alan D Stefan B Peter B Barbara R Chris J Sabina Lanning?
 * Participants**


 * Background**

Reliable, rich and regular feed for livestock is one of the greatest challenges facing smallholders in much of Africa - and Asia. Feed for livestock is as seasonal as the rains, excess in the wet, deficit in the dry. Feedstuffs have many shapes, forms and sizes - as pellets, bricks, blocks, cakes, bales, silage, as browse, fodder or forages. They come in many ways –intensive, extensive, mixed, grazed, cut and carried, tethered, in feedlots, on pastures, stall-fed, on bunds, in hedgerows, chaff, chopped, as fodder trees, from residues, from waste.

Knowledge and information on feeds and forages is almost as diverse. Spread across many platforms, tools and systems, breeders, nutritionists, microbiologists, technologists, environmentalists, scientists and farmers experience information floods and droughts. Just like livestock, they too need reliable, rich and regular ways to access and share their knowledge base to develop sustainable interventions.


 * The opportunity**

The past 10 years has seen a surge in livestock feed and forage research and development. In parallel, we have seen a surge in platforms, products and tools to share and apply the knowledge generated. FEAST, techfit, SoFT and Feedipedia aim to inform and guide decisions on suitable interventions. Feed nutritive value databases, genebank databases and NIRS equations help understand what different feeds and forages could offer; ration-balancing apps are appearing for Indian farmers. The science is published in journals including open access in Tropical Grasslands; some applications are captured in blogs (feeding innovation, CIAT, Livestock and Fish) while the community interacts by email. Beyond all of these in the ‘development’ space, there are numerous private-driven web services on the feeds ‘business’.


 * Approach**

Identify a few elements of a core livestock feeding innovation knowledge base and toolkit, convene a SMALL number of individuals to meet and 1) critically assess and 2) critically scope out a joint initiative.


 * Outcomes**

1. A focused map of potential components and scope of a core livestock feeding innovation knowledge base and toolkit 2. A prioritized set of ‘best bet’ products to deliver a core livestock feeding innovation knowledge base and toolkit 3. A plan to deliver the best bets


 * Draft Agenda**

10:00 Welcomes and objectives 10:30 Feeding innovation knowledge base and toolkit: Stocktaking and critical assessment [what we have to build from] 12:30 Lunch 13:30 Feeding innovation knowledge base and toolkit: What would success look like? [what we could do/build] 15:00 Making it happen and next steps 16:30 End