Technical Remarks about the Analyses
7 Conclusions and recommendations
This study showed that three categories of interventions contributed to reduction of environmental impacts of Ethiopian dairy value chains:
Improving productivity of dairy herds in terms of milk and meat, both at animal and herd level. Interventions include improvements in feeding, breeding, herd composition, health and housing, and are mainly focussed at increased specialization and professionalization of the dairy value chain. This study showed that improvements in feed quality were most effective in terms of reduction of greenhouse gas emissions per unit of product. All other mitigation options tested were effective in reducing environmental impacts.
Professionalization of the post farm-gate dairy value chain to reduce milk losses. Improving nutrient use efficiency for sustaining dairy production in the long term.
Key recommendations for greening of Ethiopian dairy value chains are:
Improve quality of feed rations, especially digestibility, for specialized farms and urban SHF; Promote on-farm production of high quality forage and crop residues in rural SHF, as
purchasing feed is too expensive for rural farmers;
Replace oxen by mechanization and female stock in mixed systems;
Reduce milk losses in post farm-gate stages of the commodity chain (transport, processing, and selling);
Replace unproductive female animals with young productive females; Increase crossbreeding through improved AI services;
Reduce the use of dung cake for fuel, and promote biogas as an alternative source of energy and animal manure / bio-slurry as a fertilizer;
Promote manure management and selling of manure as a fertilizer in urban and peri-urban farms to prevent accumulation of manure;
7.1
Position of the Technical Study in the Livestock Sector
Development
The current analysis clearly showed effective mitigation pathways in the improved animal productivity in milk and meat. However, mitigation scenarios were based on theoretical assumptions for
improvements in dairy value chains. To deal with the complexity in practical situations and to give more detailed recommendations for a range of situations, monitoring of real changes in herd and animal performance is needed to evaluate and simulate effectiveness of specific mitigation
interventions in the different farming systems and locations. Evidence-based reporting will be needed to prove effects of interventions on realized emissions, productivity gains, and nutrient cycling in practice. Transformation of dairy systems should be supported in an evidence-based way.
The study has delivered a set of technical recommendations. Some of these recommendations can be easily implemented within the existing framework of improving dairy production in Ethiopia. This holds especially for improved feeding and manure management.
As feed has shown to be a key factor in productivity, a strategic exploration of feed resources in Ethiopia can provide insight in the potential of feed improvements under current conditions. An additional analysis can provide insight in future feed resource availability under climate change and explore scenarios for resilient and low-emission feeding strategies. The manure management
improvement is a combination of the development both bio-digesters and manure storage facilities to utilise both the energy and fertilizer value of manure.
The other mitigation options, being the mechanisation, the change in the post farm chain and the changes in herd structure by replacing infertile and traction animals, can be characterised as a transformation towards more market oriented and specialised dairy production systems. The increase in milk demand, combined with the need to mitigate emissions, requires concerted actions in the whole dairy value chain. This is not only a matter of technical extension to farmers, but requires the involvement of other stakeholders to shape or improve the new parts of the dairy value chain, such as a sustainable supply and maintenance chain for mechanisation and processing facilities, transport, road infrastructure and access to an electricity grid for development of the post farm chain. An important condition of the development of the dairy value chain is that the improvements contribute to the added value creation and will have a positive revenue on its own. Only in this way, a sector can be viable and integral sustainable.
It is known from innovation processes in the livestock sector and industrial sectors, that the
development of a business case and having the right stakeholders on board are the decisive success factors, and not technology.
Many of the current projects in the livestock sector have experience with this type of approach for successful adoption and innovation, Harvesting these experiences and building this to knowledge about innovation processes under Ethiopian farming systems and conditions will contribute to sector transformation.
Transformation processes take time and a good monitoring and evaluation program has to be put in place. This will help to monitor progress and adjust the strategy when necessary.
Transformation already takes place, as shown by the presence of specialised peri-urban and urban dairy farms with little or no land, having a different herd structure compared to smallholder farms and a strong market orientation. These farms and their management can in part be considered as
frontrunners in the transformation. At the same moment,the development of a specialised landless dairy (sub)sector can be a threat to the environment and public health if waste is not managed properly as nutrients can accumulate quickly in these systems. At the same time, a lack of nutrients and organic matter can cause degradation of soils where feed for these systems is produced. A regulatory framework has to be developed to steer the intensification of the dairy sector in a sustainable way.