Living fences for improved smallholder livestock systems in Cambodia

ABSTRACT

In northwest Cambodia, the majority of smallholder households own livestock. Poor consistency in feed supply throughout the year is a major constraint to livestock performance. Another critical challenge, livestock roaming in the dry season for forage, results in smallholders having few options to protect any post-rice dry season cropping activity from free-ranging animals. Living fences have the potential to address both these challenges, by providing high-quality feed for livestock throughout the year, while also serving as a barrier to protect the land from livestock grazing. A mixed-methods approach was used with communities in Battambang Province, including household surveys, a fodder production experiment, a cattle feeding trial, farmer training and data on dissemination and adoption. Results showed that living fence species, such as Leucaena leucocephala, can produce 2.5 kg of fresh weight per week per 100 trees during the dry season. This biomass volume is sufficient to supplement cattle diets so that a smallholder can sustain a small percentage weight gain in cows throughout the dry season. Critical challenges, including land tenure, physical access to paddy lands, and the gendered nature of these farming systems, remain for realizing private benefit on paddy lands culturally considered public in the dry season.

KEYWORDS:

• Cattle
• improved fodder
• rice systems
• technology adoption
• livestock management
• hunger season
• gliricidia sepium
• moringa oleifera
• acacia pennata

Acknowledgements

This manuscript is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The contents are the responsibility of The University of Tennessee and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.

Disclosure

All animal subjects research was conducted under the University of Tennessee Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee protocol number 2646-1218. The authors would like to thank Seiha Lim and Seyha Chea, University of Battambang interns, for their work on the project.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the USAID Bureau for Food Security and the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems, managed by the University of Florida, under USAID grant no: AID-OAA-L-15-00003, and subaward no: UFDSP00011767. All human subjects research was conducted under the University of Tennessee Institutional Review Board protocol number UTK IRB-17-04037-XP.