Feeding livestock through partnerships

Resumen

Addressing issues of animal feed scarcity has the potential of raising incomes and improving the lives of small holder farmers across the tropics. Though technical solutions have been available for years and have been reported as superior by farmers, adoption has been lacking. Through action research, a coalition of partners examined, approaches to increase fodder production in Nigeria. Initially prominence was given to technological solutions; partners were approached to help with scaling up and adapting the technology to local situations. During the project, it became clear that the issue of fodder scarcity is much more complex and introduction of simple technologies was not enough. As a result, the coalition of partners implementing the project has been shifting focus towards the institutional interactions between partners and the capacity required to facilitate the changes within and between them to enable innovation and help address issues related to fodder scarcity. This paper describes the evolution of an approach and the experiences that provided a better understanding of the role of partnerships and how bridging the divides through capacity building will help better address fodder scarcity.