Towards a water and nutrient efficient forages production in peri-urban and urban livestock farming in Faisalabad, Pakistan

The Agriculture sector plays a fundamental role in Pakistan’s economy. It is the second largest sector, accounting for over 21 percent of national GDP. Livestock, the single largest contributor, contributes more or less 53 percent of the agriculture value added. Green fodder is the most valuable and cheapest source of feed for livestock. Maintaining the availability of adequate feed for livestock is crucial to smallholders who depend on animals for their livelihood. Fodder makes up to 70 percent of livestock inputs and is crucial to the livelihood of poor livestock-keepers. But yield and area under fodder crops is reducing due to growing pressure of human population, shortage of irrigation water, less and erratic rainfalls, low priorities to fodder production and imbalanced use of fertilizers. Keeping in view the constraints in fodder production, the major objective of the study will be the improvement of production and quality of fodder, to overcome the gap between fodder production and requirement and improvement in social standards of the people who depend on livestock for their livelihood. First of all, a baseline survey will be conducted in fodder growing areas of Faisalabad to collect the data about socioeconomic activities and agricultural production practices of the farmers. On the basis of the baseline survey a field experiment will be conducted to assess the water and nutrient efficiency of different fodder crops. Field experiment treatments will include three fertilizer levels (control, chemical fertilizer and animal manure) and two irrigation levels (recommended irrigation and half of the recommended irrigation). Two fodder types (variable drought adaption) in each season will be evaluated in terms of yield and forage quality. Fodder types with superior water and nutrient efficiency will be recommended for the farmers. Further outcomes of this research will be an enhanced availability of good quality fodder throughout the year and ultimately improvement in social standards of the people.