Supporting dairy value chains and smallholder agricultural mechanization in Ghana, Kenya, Tunisia and Zambia: Program of Accompanying Research for Agricultural Innovation (PARI)

Technological and institutional innovations are key for sustainable agricultural growth and food- and nutrition security in Africa and South Asia. The German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) have acknowledged this potential and started the large-scale program “One world, no hunger”. Under this program, they have established Agricultural Innovation Centers in 12 African countries and India. This Initiative is supported by the Program of Accompanying Research for Agricultural Innovation (PARI), a multi-national and interdisciplinary research consortium. Besides the University of Hohenheim, this consortium compromises the Center for Development Research (ZEF) at the University of Bonn, the Technische Universität München-Weihenstephan, the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) and the African Growth and Development Policy Modeling Consortium (AGRODEP).
Within the PARI consortium, the Hans-Ruthenberg-Institute of the University of Hohenheim provides expertise on three subject areas: (a) agricultural engineering (led by Prof. Dr. Joachim Müller, Agricultural Engineering in the Tropics and Subtropics (440e) and Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Karlheinz Köller), (b) tropical livestock production (led by Jun.-Prof. Dr. Uta Dickhöfer, Animal Nutrition and Rangeland Management in the Tropics and Subtropics (490i)) and (c) institutions and governance (led by Prof. Dr. Regina Birner, Social and Institutional Change in Agricultural Development (490c), who is also coordinating the Hohenheim group of the consortium). The University of Hohenheim focuses on two research areas:  

1) Supporting dairy value chains through innovations in feeding, milk cooling and institutional development (Kenya and Tunisia)
The goal of this research area is to support the development of dairy value chains through an integrated approach that aims at enhanced productivity as well as reduction of losses along the entire value chain. The project consists of three sub-projects. 1) The tropical livestock production group develops and tests innovations for improved feeding of cattle during the dry season, and conducts research on the resilience of individual animals to conditions of undernutrition. 2) The agricultural engineering group develops and tests innovations for milk cooling, as this constitutes another important bottleneck in dairy value chains in tropical countries. Drawing on the experience with an ongoing research project in Tunisia, the group introduces a solar-based cooling system that can be operated independently of electricity supply. The system involves innovative insulated milk-cans that have the capacity to cool down and store milk using ice compartments. 3) The research group focusing on institutions and governance conducts research on institutional innovations along the dairy value chain that support the adoption of innovations. In collaboration with the livestock group, the team analyzes the economics of improved feeding systems and assesses the role that extension services can play in providing advisory services on feeding to the dairy farmers. In collaboration with the agricultural engineering group, the team analyzes business models for the introduction of the solar milk cooling system described above, with a focus on the option that the solar cooling system is operated by a dairy cooperative.

2) Supporting mechanization of crop production of smallholder farms with focus on gender and capacity development (Ghana and Zambia)
There has been a renewed interest of governments, donors and private companies to promote (smallholder) mechanization in Africa, based on the insight that seasonal labor shortages are a major constraint to the development of crop production systems. This research supports smallholder mechanization by conducting research on the following four topics: 1) The team analyzes governance challenges of agricultural mechanization and develops institutional innovations for creating a conducive environment for smallholder mechanization. 2) To inform current efforts to promote mechanization, the team conducts a comparative historical study on how to create conducive institutions for knowledge and skills development to enable agricultural mechanization, using Germany, the United States, and Ghana as case study countries. 3) In collaboration with John Deere, the team evaluates an approach to promote smallholder mechanization in Zambia, where emerging farmers provide tractor services to smallholders. The research analyzes the economic, social and environmental effects of this business model for smallholder households and their communities. 4) To study the implications of tractor service provision on the intra-household division of labor, a smartphone application (developed by the Hochschule der Medien, Stuttgart) will be used for a time use study of male and female household members.

Subprojekt Jun.-Prof. Dr. Uta Dickhöfer

Options for improved feeding of African dairy cattle during the dry season and resilience of individual animals to conditions of undernutrition

Milk in Africa has been identified as the most important commodity for research and development due to its potential to contribute the agricultural gross domestic product. Yet milk production is hampered by low availability and nutritional quality of feed resources especially in the dry season. Interestingly, during and after such periods, individual animals respond differently to changes in nutrient intakes. While the first year of the project served to generate a searchable database of agricultural innovations that had been developed for tropical farming systems, in the second and third year, we aim:

• at identifying available feed resources with potential to be used during the dry season and to evaluate options for an improved dry-season feeding of dairy cows,
• at determining the inter-animal variation in productivity and resilience to varying nutritional situations,
• at identifying morphophysiological and behavioral characteristics of animals more adapted to a challenging nutritional status.