aistand south~ern afrkca - (PDF, 101 mb) - USAID

Introduction of dairy cattle production systems in
soil conservation areas
Summary
Dodomaharegionsituatedinthesemi-arldzone
of central Tanzania. The pressure of cultivation
and grazing among other factors, resulted In
severe land degradation in sorre areas such that
there was adanger of desertiffaton.
In 1973,the Government launJ::='la national
soil conservation programme aimed at land
reclamation and soilfertility restoration ii, the
worst affected areas of Dodoma region underi he
Dodoma Soil Conservation Programme, loca ly
known as Hifadhi Ardhi Dodoma (HAD-)).
Among several of measures taken was the
removal of all grazing livestock frow the
severely eroded areas.
There have been some achievements In the
eroded areas in the context of Land reclamation,
How.ver, total eviction of grazing livestock is
suspected to have resulted In Incidences of
malnutrition in the closed areas (HADO areas)
due to the subsequent shortage ofmilk and meat,
A project on 'Development of Feeding and
Management Syrtr~m for Stall-fed Itiroved
Cows in the HADO AreaW was proposed to look
Intopossibilitiesofre-introductinglivestockinto
the closed areas without the attendant land
degradation problems.
This paper highlights the general problems
and achievements related to the HADO
programme and progress on the Implementation
of the project on stall-feeding and management
systems of improved dairy cows in the HADO
areas.The technologicalpackageofstall-eeding
and Improved dairy cattle is widely a,epted but
its expansion is constrained by Inadequate
numbers of foundation stock.
Introduction
Tanzania
livestock populations
has one of the largest
inAfrica.
ruminant
According to the
livestock puatins in Africma.crinan ta hed
livestock census of 1984, mainland Tanzania had
12.51 million cattle, 3.08 million sheep and 6.44
million goats. Most of these animals are concentrated
in the semi-arid areas (MALD, 1988)
partly due to the absence of tsetse flies and the
additional factor of the minimum competition for
land for alternative uses such as crop production,
The bulk of the cattle are indigenous zebu with
C. M. Shayo
Zonal Research and Training Centre
Livestock Production Research Institute
Mpwapwa, Tanzania
201
the exception of 0.14 million improved dairy
cattle.
Dodoma region is one of two regions in the
semi-arid zone of central Tanzania and is
characterised by long dry seasons of up to eight
months (Jackson, 1977; Shayo, 1992). In 1984,
the region had 1.00, 0.17 and 0.54 million cattle,
sheep and goats, respectively, representing
about 8% of the mainland's total ruminant
livestock population (MALD,1988).
Some areas of Dodoma region have been
exposed to severe land degradation to the extent
that soils have become extremely shallow and
infertile making the possibility ofdesertification
real. There are several factors which accentuated
land degradation, including human
activities (anthropogenic) and physical (natural)
factors, but mainly the presence of grazing
livestock.
In response to the ituation, the Government
of Tanzania initiated soil conservation pro.
grammes in the Dcdora region in 1973. These
programmes aimed at land reclamation and soil
fertility restoration in the worst affected areas
under the Dodoma Soil Conservation Programme,
locally known as Hifadhi Ardhi
Dodoma (HADO). Measures taken to achieve the
above mentioned objectives included afforestation,
appropriate cultivation methods,
control of run-off by contour band construction
and planting vegetation in the river beds.
However, the presence of grazing livestock in
the target areas affected the establishment of
trees, contour bands and vegetative cover in the
river beds. Therefore, these animals were
translocated from the severely eroded areas of
Kondoa District, Mvumi Division and some
villages in Mpwapwa District (Berege and
Chitemo In Kondoa District an area covering
1256 km was closed to a total of 46,370 cattle,
10,666 sheep and 28,840 goats in 1979. In 1985
a total of 30,991 cattle, 352 sheep and 25, 42
goats were removed from an area of 713 km in
,ivumi Divi-sun (Ostberg, 1985; SUAC, 1987).
Since traditionally livestock provide foods
(mainly in the form of milk and meat), income,
manure and a number of social functions,
removal of the animals denied inhabitants
access to milk and manure. An absence of milk
and meat in the diet may have caused incidences