Adaptation of forages to climate, soils and use in smallholder farming systems in southeast Asia.

The Forages for Smallholders Project (FSP) actively involved farmers in evaluating forage varieties for smallholder farming systems in Southeast Asia. The combination of ‘traditional’ evaluation techniques (nursery and regional evaluations) with farmer-led, informal evaluation of forages by farmer experimenters on their own farms resulted in the identification of a small range of robust, broadly adapted forage varieties. Most of these varieties have already been adopted and integrated in various ways into upland farming systems in the region. Farmer experimenters not only provided a huge amount of information on environmental adaptation of forage varieties but also on ways of growing, managing and using forages in smallholder upland farms. WORKING with smallholder farmers to develop appropriate technologies for their farms requires not only a sound ‘partnership’ approach but also ‘knowledge’ and ‘technologies’ which farmers can use and adapt to their particular situations. In the case of forages, farmers need access to forage varieties that are: 1. adapted to the climate and soils; 2. suited to the intended use (e.g. what type of feed, environmental application); and 3. fit into the farming system. The ‘traditional’ approach to forage species evaluation was to conduct a small plot evaluation on agricultural research stations. Species with high yields were selected and further tested in larger plots to elicit agronomic information on management and feeding value. Much information on forage varieties has been generated in this way in many countries and is available in reports and the scientific literature. Unfortunately, few smallholder farmers have ever adopted forage varieties and thus little is known about needs of smallholder farmers, the suitability of different forages to fulfill these needs and how forages can be integrated into smallholder farming systems. The Forages for Smallholder Project (FSP) tried to overcome this limitation by including farmers early in the species evaluation process and by providing feedback of their experiences to other partners in the evaluation process. The objective of the evaluation was to identify ‘forage options’ which development workers could offer smallholder farmers in Southeast Asia for adaptation and integration on their farms.