Publication Date

1985

Description

The present-day role of grasslands and fodder is reviewed with respect agriculture, animal production and environmental concerns. The world's grazing lands are a finite resource and, overall, arc being badly managed; in most developing countries action is required now, before it is too late. They will continue to be a major source of animal feed for the foreseeable future; encroachment from cropping will continue locally but, for much of what is now natural pasture, exploitation by the grazing animal .will remain the major means of obtaining an economic return; the task of grassland professionals is to assist the managers of these lands to do so in a profitable, sustainable and efficient manner. In many developing countries, in the better­watered areas, the emphasis will be increasingly on better use of the remaining rough grazing along with strategic production of high­quality fodders to supplement crop residues and roughages. The importance of considering the overall farming system and the feed resources within it when planning the development of pastures is stressed. With the increasing emphasis on sustainable, low-input systems of farming in the developed world, legume-based pastures must again become important. Where rehabilitation of natural grazing lands is desirable then it should be through management methods, with or without water-harvesting, rather than the very costly reseeding and tree-planting techniques which are sometimes advocated without thought as to long-term economics or sustainability. Grazing systems and pasture improvement methods are described from a range of important pastoral zones of the developing world with examples from Asia, Africa and Latin America, their problems are defined and the improvements which have been made or are available through pasture research are discussed. Much information is already available and awaiting application, but several subjects still require study; the more important are listed and include: lack of information on the areas of grassland, the main pasture types and condi(ions in most countries, which are essential to national planning; the use of indigenous technical knowledge from traditional pastoral systems in developing ways of improving the management of rangelands in developing countries; the mechanisms of weed ingress; the tolerance of woody species to lopping and the management of trees as fodder generally.

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Grasslands for our World

The present-day role of grasslands and fodder is reviewed with respect agriculture, animal production and environmental concerns. The world's grazing lands are a finite resource and, overall, arc being badly managed; in most developing countries action is required now, before it is too late. They will continue to be a major source of animal feed for the foreseeable future; encroachment from cropping will continue locally but, for much of what is now natural pasture, exploitation by the grazing animal .will remain the major means of obtaining an economic return; the task of grassland professionals is to assist the managers of these lands to do so in a profitable, sustainable and efficient manner. In many developing countries, in the better­watered areas, the emphasis will be increasingly on better use of the remaining rough grazing along with strategic production of high­quality fodders to supplement crop residues and roughages. The importance of considering the overall farming system and the feed resources within it when planning the development of pastures is stressed. With the increasing emphasis on sustainable, low-input systems of farming in the developed world, legume-based pastures must again become important. Where rehabilitation of natural grazing lands is desirable then it should be through management methods, with or without water-harvesting, rather than the very costly reseeding and tree-planting techniques which are sometimes advocated without thought as to long-term economics or sustainability. Grazing systems and pasture improvement methods are described from a range of important pastoral zones of the developing world with examples from Asia, Africa and Latin America, their problems are defined and the improvements which have been made or are available through pasture research are discussed. Much information is already available and awaiting application, but several subjects still require study; the more important are listed and include: lack of information on the areas of grassland, the main pasture types and condi(ions in most countries, which are essential to national planning; the use of indigenous technical knowledge from traditional pastoral systems in developing ways of improving the management of rangelands in developing countries; the mechanisms of weed ingress; the tolerance of woody species to lopping and the management of trees as fodder generally.