Smallholder dairy cattle feeding technologies and practices in Tanzania: failures, successes, challenges and prospects for sustainability

Sustainability Performance in Supply Chain of Dairy Products: Examining the Constraints of Dairy Sector Using Value Chain Approach in Northern Regions, Tanzania

“…Agriculture is a life blood and economic back born of Tanzania (Manyilizu et al, 2016;Temu, 2011). As mentioned earlier, dairy sector is one among the important contributor of agricultural GDP of Tanzania, the sustainability of the sector should be a concern of every one (Kimaro, Mor, & Toribio, 2018;Maleko et al, 2018). Despite the fact that, smallholder dairy farming is growing at steady rate of 6% per year and climate are appropriate in majority parts of Tanzania but the supply of milk and milk products has not kept pace with the rapid increase in the human population (E. S. Swai & Karimuribo, 2011).…”

“…However, there are number of challenges which face the smallholder dairy farming in northern part of Tanzania which rise the alert on the sustainability of the sector. Some of the issues include land scarcity (Hillbom, 2011), dry season fodder scarcity (and access to water) for cattle kippers (Kurwijila, Omore, & Grace, 2012;Maleko et al, 2018), rise in temperature, prolonged and frequent periods of drought in the regions (Kimaro et al, 2018), massive cattle deaths due to outbreaks of diseases (Kimaro et al, 2018;Ojija, Abihudi, Mwendwa, Leweri, & Chisanga, 2017) and etc.…”

Effects of Season Variation on Water, Feed, Milk Yield and Reproductive Performance of Dairy Cows in Smallholder Farms in Eastern Africa

“…Seasonal fluctuations in milk yield and reproductive performance in SDFs are, therefore, often seen to be most marked during the dry season period, characterized also by low or no rainfall [50,77,78]. SDFs face feed resources constraints during the dry season period, which also worsens with frequent droughts and flooding associated with the changing climate, witnessed recently throughout Eastern Africa [11,18,20]. This is mainly associated with reduction in herbage growth rate, quality, species composition and DM yield [78].…”

“…Main causes are decreased availability of good quality and quantity forages and water, hence reduction in milk production and increased work-loads [4]. In adopting to impacts of climatic changes, SDFs in Eastern Africa keep dairy cattle with generally low production potential [11], [20], since they rely on indigenous breeds [21,22], and associated poor reproductive management which reduces the productive and reproductive efficiency [23].…”

Climate-smart livestock production at landscape level in Kenya

“…In this thesis, the potential to reduce GHG emissions from sustainably intensified livestock production was assessed by focusing on dairy feed improvements across the Kenyan highlands. The approach can be out-scaled to other regions that show comparable agricultural production systems and forest disturbance dynamics such as highland areas in Tanzania or Ethiopia (DeVries et al, 2016;Maleko et al, 2018). The need and interest to develop smallholder-driven dairy production in East Africa is marked by project activities of several international 'green' development programs such as the 'Smallholder Dairy Commercialization Programme' (SDCP) financed by the 'International Fund for Agricultural Development' (IFAD) and the 'East Africa Dairy Development' (EADD) program.…”