Use of crop residues as animal feeds in developing countries

Development and application of modem technology for upgrading straw in Europe during the 1970's has stimulated intense interest in developing countries. Since 1980, twenty four international workshops have been held in Africa and Asia to consider research and development on crop residues as feed, with emphasis on improving their intake and digestibility in ruminants by treatment with ammonia generated from urea and/or supplementation. Despite much research and development at universities and experiment stations, farmer-uptake of the findings has been minimal. Reasons for this are manifold, but include difficulties of transporting and storing crop residues, insufficient trials at farmer-level demonstrating obvious economic benefits from treatment and supplementation, inappropriate technology and near-absence of agricultural extension services. The annual dry matter production of 2.0 t crop residue per 500 kg livestock unit in developing countries is a vast resource which is currently underutilised. Future population pressure in developing countries will require greater utilisation of crop residues as animal feed; hopefully ways of applying the recent research findings will be found.