Girma Abebe — новинки

Improved household food security can be achieved by increasing and diversifying household food production, increasing and smoothing household income and consumption and by reducing the cost of obtaining food. The value chain approach mainly focuses on linking households to growing markets, so that households can earn income to purchase additional food. Small ruminants provide meat, milk, skin, hair, manure and other products and require cheaper investment expenses to start production and fattening. Small ruminants account on average for 40% of the cash income and 19% of the total value of subsistence food derived from all livestock production (Adane and Girma, 2008). Small Ruminants value chain contribution for Chronically Food Insecure households (CFI HHs) food security has a forward and backward linkage. The forward linkage was when the CFI HHs are using the income to buy farm inputs (fertilizer, seed, etc.), to buy food items, and to minimize HH vulnerability. The backward linkage was when the CFI HH pays back the loan, pays school fees and medical expenses, covers other HH expenses and helps not to sell food items. Authors

Urban and peri-urban sheep and goat keeping is an important livelihood strategy for urban dwellers, it is usually conducted by retired people and unemployed as a sole or supplemental sources of household income. Most of the sheep and goat owners were lower income families; whose income depended on sale of animals and their products, petty traders, daily laborers, house rent and pension. This book provides means of examining the impact of urban and peri-urban sheep and goat production on food security of urban deweler.

To test the accuracy of 30-day TIM with 15 and 45-day TIM of milk recording to estimate the lactation yield and to measure the effect of genetic group, parity and season of calving on the accuracy, 1220 lactation records of Friesian x Arsi cows were utilized. The lactation yield was estimated for lactation length of 210-305 days. The accuracy was measured in terms of absolute difference and percentage difference between actual and estimated yield. The study revealed that 15, 30 and 45-day time interval can estimate lactation yield accurately to extent of less than five percent bias irrespective of genetic group and parity. The season of calving significantly (P 0.05) affected the percentage difference in 15-day TIM. The lactation yield estimated by 15-day TIM was more accurate with high R2 value 99.62%. The regression analysis indicated that actual yield of 9th period in 15-day, 5th period in 30-day and 3rd period in 45-day TIM predicted reliable estimate of 305-day yield. Thus 30 and 45-day time interval methods of recording can be used in estimation of lactation yield in crossbred cows irrespective of season of calving and parity.

Smallholder sheep and goats production and marketing systems were studied to to undestand the current situation and design improvement option that could boost the flock and livelihood of farmers. The study found that season feed shortage, prevalence of diseases and parasites and lack of improved technologies to improve the flock performnces are major impendments under smallholder settings.