An evaluation of adoptability of alkali treatment of rice straw as feed for growing beef cattle under smallholders' circumstances

Nguyen Xuan Trach

Hanoi Agricultural University, Vietnam
nxtrach@hau1.edu.vn

Abstract

A feeding trial with participation of beef cattle smallholders was conducted in a rice growing village in the countryside of Hanoi to evaluate adoptability of urea treatment of rice straw as feed for growing beef cattle. A total of 40 households were selected and divided into 2 groups, one raising their growing cattle as usually practiced, and the other applying urea-treated rice straw.

Results confirmed the positive effect of rice straw treatment: the cattle fed on urea-treated straw ate more and grew faster than those raised as usual. However, following the demonstration trial, farmers in the studied village did not continue to apply the technique due to a number of reasons such as inconvenience in reorganization of routine activities, psychological issues and socio-economic concerns. Overall, too small a scale of cattle production is the main reason for not adopting the technique.

Key words: beef cattle,  rice straw, smallholders,  treatment, urea

Introduction

Cattle production in Vietnam is mainly in the hand of smallholders with limited resources. During the dry season, when green grass becomes scarce, cattle are usually in severe shortage of feed. To overcome this problem, methods for improved utilization of rice straw as winter feed for cattle have been studied for application in practice. Urea treatment of rice straw is a technically good approach for this purpose (see Doyle et al.1986, Nguyen Xuan Trach 2000). However, in reality this technique has not been widely applied by farmers (Devendra 1997). It appears that under the smallholder's circumstances, besides the technical aspect, a number of other factors need to be addressed before a "good" technique can be adopted. Therefore, a participatory feeding trial on feeding young beef cattle with treated rice straw was organized in order to:

• Demonstrate the effect of urea treatment of rice straw as feed for beef cattle under circumstances of smallholders.
• Evaluate factors affecting adoptability of the urea treatment technique by smallholders.
   

Materials and Methods

Participatory Feeding Trial

A trial on feeding young local cattle with participation of smallholders was conducted in the winter-spring period of 2001-2002 in a rice growing village in the Hanoi countryside. A total of 40 steers consisting of 20 at 9-12 months of age (136 ± 4.2 kg) and another 20 at 13-16 months of age (169 ± 5.3 kg) were equally divided into 2 feeding groups according to a 2x2 factorial arrangement:

• The control groups were fed as usually practiced by local farmers (grazing roadside grass and ad libitum feeding of rice straw) without any intervention.
• The experimental groups were fed as usually practiced by local farmers, except that the rice straw was treated with 4% urea for 3 weeks before feeding.

The straw was treated in a number of ways considered to be convenient for each household according to their own circumstances, keeping the treatment principles unchanged. The feeding trial lasted for 90 days following a preparation period of 2 weeks. The animals were weighed at the beginning and the end of the experiment at 7am on two consecutive days. Feed consumption was measured 3 times over 7 days in the middle of each experimental month.

Data were analysed using the General Linear Model (GLM) procedure of the SAS (1996) software. Analyses of variance (ANOVA) of data were made according to a 2x2 factorial design, in which age and straw treatment were treated as two fixed effects. Group means were separated by the Ryan-Einot-Gabriel-Welsch (REGWQ) multiple range test.

Evaluation of adoptability of urea treatment of rice straw

During the preparation of the demonstration trial, both involved farmers and other cattle raising villagers were instructed on the technique of rice straw treatment. Then, the feeding trial itself and the results were exposed to the community. Nine months after the feeding trial, the households involved in the feeding trial were re-surveyed and interviewed according to a pre-designed questionnaire to evaluate factors affecting adoptability of the technique.
 

Results and Discussion

Effect of urea treatment of rice straw on the growth rate of steers

The steers fed urea-treated rice straw had higher growth rates (ADG) than steers fed untreated straw (Table 1). Older steers tended to have a higher growth rate than younger  steers (P=0.0??) but the response to urea treatment of the straw was similar (by 45 and 49%, respectively for 9-12 month-old and 13-16 month-old steers)  (Table 2 and Figure 1).  The interaction between age and treatment was not statistically significant (P>0.05) . That is, under the smallholder's circumstances, urea treatment of rice straw was technically effective in improving the growth rate of steers. This confirmed the positive effect of straw treatment as repeatedly reported in the literature (Doyle et al 1986; Nguyen Xuan Trach 2000; Nguyen Xuan Trach et al 2002).

 

Figure 1: Effect of urea treatment of rice straw on growth response of beef cattle of two age groups

One apparent reason for the higher ADG of steers fed on treated straw was that they consumed more straw dry matter (P<0.05). Moreover, as indicated by previous studies (Nguyen Xuan Trach 2000), treated straw has higher digestibility than untreated straw. As a result, those steers fed on treated straw had a better growth response.

Adoptability of urea treatment of rice straw under the smallholder's circumstances

The village where the demonstration feeding trial was conducted was in a rice growing area. When the rice straw treatment technique was introduced most cattle growing farmers were very enthusiastic in support of it. However, it turned out, nine months after the end of the demonstration trial, that no one continued to apply the technique in their cattle feeding practice. At the end of the feeding trial, all the interviewed farmers agreed that urea treatment could help improve utilization of rice straw as cattle feed. The technique was simple and thus could be applied by smallholders. That is, the technique was technically effective, but the transfer of it into routine practice of smallholders was a failure. Several reasons were put forward for not adopting the technique (Table 3).

The interviews revealed that each household had one or more reasons for not adopting the technique. A number of households (30%) found it rather difficult to have money for investment in making the silo and for purchase of the treatment chemicals. The fact may be that traditionally small scale farmers in the study  area were ready to invest a considerable sum of money to buy the animal, but for all other inputs, emphasis was on making use of available resources such as family labour,  so as to minimize further cash investment. A number of households (20%) responded that they did not want to put themselves at risk by treating straw for cattle feeding (eg: being afraid of having their cattle poisoned by urea). Psychologically, small farmers are not always willing to change their economic activities if this involves greater risk.

The study area was densely populated and, as a result, 42% of households found it difficult to find a convenient space in their premises for straw treatment. It should be noted that a majority of the households (72%) reasoned that treatment of rice straw would interfere too much with routine farm and household activities; and they did not think it worthwhile to replace some of these previously set-up activities with new ones, even though the treatment techniques per se was not difficult (only 7.5% considered it to be complicated).  In part, this may have been because they had only one or two cattle to raise as a minor component of their mixed farm economy and, as a result, the economic benefit from straw treatment was unclear (as 45% households responded), in spite of the undeniable technical effectiveness (100% households agreed on this). Instead, they were familiar with cutting and carrying roadside grass for their cattle on the way back from the field or the market place. The small scale of the cattle enterprise was probably  the main reason for not adopting a "new" technique like rice straw treatment.

Conclusions

The present study has highlighted two opposite aspects of urea treatment of rice straw as cattle feed under smallholders' circumstances:

• Technically, urea treatment can improve the feeding value of rice straw and thus the growth rate of young beef cattle.
  
  
• Socio-economically, application of urea treatment of rice straw for cattle feeding is constrained due to a multiple range of reasons such as inconvenience in reorganization of routine activities, psychological issues and economic concerns.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the International Foundation for Sciences (IFS), Stockholm, Sweden, through a grant to the author.

References

Devendra C 1997 Crop Residues for Feeding Animals in Asia: Technology Development and adoption in Crop/Livestock Systems. In Renard C (ed.) 1997 Crop Residues in Sustainable Mixed Crop/Livestock Farming Systems. CAB International. ICRISAT-ILRI. Pp: 241-267.

Doyle P T, Devendra C and Pearce G R 1986 Rice straw as a feed for ruminants, International Development Program of Australian Universities and Colleges Limited (IDP). Canberra.

Nguyen Xuan Trach 1998 The need for improved utilization of rice straw as feed for ruminants in Vietnam: An overview. Livestock Research for Rural Development 10 (2) http://www.cipav.org.co/lrrd/lrrd10/2/trach102.htm

Nguyen Xuan Trach 2000 Treatment and supplementation of rice straw for ruminant feeding in Vietnam, Doctor Scientarum Thesis. Agricultural University of Norway.

Nguyen Xuan Trach, Magne Mo and Cu Xuan Dan 2002 Treatment and supplementation of rice straw for ruminant feeding, Proceedings of the Workshop on Improved Utilization of Byproducts for Animal Feeding in Vietnam, held on 28-30 March 2001 in Hanoi. Pp: 178-204.

SAS 1996 SAS User's Guide: Statistics (Version 6). SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, USA.

Received 25 May 2004: Accepted 16 June 2004

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