Assessment of Ficus thonningii tree production and utilization for livestock feed by smallholder farmers in northwestern Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: An assessment on the management practices and uses of Ficus thonningii tree by smallholder farmers' was carried from December 2014 to March 2015 to evaluate the status of tree management, utilization as livestock feed and identify major production and utilization constraints. Three districts were purposely selected based on abundance of the tree from northwestern Ethiopia, and from each district, three peasant associations (smallest administrative unit) were selected purposely based on the abundance of F. thonningii availability and farmers' utilization practices. The methodology of the study encompasses questionnaire, group discussion, key informant interview and secondary data sources. Descriptive statistics and linear regression were employed to present the quantitative and qualitative variables obtained from the survey. Results: The result indicated in all districts, livestock feed shortage during dry season was a critical problem. The ownership of F. thonningii tree indicated nonsignificant (P > 0.05) difference among the study districts. The types of livestock species reported feeding F. thonningii were cattle (54.2%), sheep (24.1%) and goats (21.7%) in all study districts. Among the parts of the tree used as feed, leaves in fresh form were used as dry season supplement to the livestock. The majority of respondents in the study districts reported to have accustomed practicing feeding F. thonningii leaves in the fresh from, followed by wilting and both fresh and wilting. Of the constraints of farmers in the study districts in using F. thonningii as feed for livestock were lack of training (51%), followed by land shortage (31%) and labor scarcity (18%). Conclusions: This preliminary assessment indicated that the tree has valuable benefit to mitigate critical livestock feed scarcity in the dry season; farmers do have many constraints in its fullest utilization. Hence, to exploit the potential of F. thonningii as livestock fodder in northwestern Ethiopia, smallholder farmers should get training on production and utilization of the fodder tree.