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Tanzania is an agricultural country, and nearly three-fourths of her population depends on
agriculture for livelihood. In Tanzania, dairy farmers do not often meet their all-year-
round animal feed demand from on-farm production. This is due to several reasons
including large livestock numbers for the available fodder and low yields from forages
because of the seasonality of rainfall and or poor fodder production practices. Due to the
fodder shortage, farmers have engaged in fodder production. Fodder production combined
with different agronomic practices has been going on to alleviate the problem in the
country. However, there is a paucity of knowledge on the economics of fodder production
in the study area. This study was conducted to estimate Rhodes yield and analyze the
economics of fodder production under different production treatments (cost-benefit
analysis), including Treatment one (T 1 ) Control, Treatment two (T 2 ) Cattle Farm Yard
Manure (CFYM), Treatment three (T 3 ) CFYM +Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Sulphur and Zinc
(NPSZn), Treatment four (T 4 ) NPSZn, Treatment five (T 5 ) NPSZn +Sulphate of
Ammonium (SA) and Treatment six (T 6 ) NPSZn + Urea. Data were recorded from each
plot of 0.01 hectares, to establish costs and returns per each 0.01 hectare. Cost-benefit
analysis was used to establish costs and benefits accrued per each plot. The findings show
that, fodder production by the ASAS Dairies Limited was more beneficial than the
alternative source of purchasing it from fodder sellers. Treatment (T 3 ) which is
CFYM+NPSZn and Treatment (T 6 ) which is NPSZn + Urea of the experiments yielded
the highest returns with the Net Present Values (NPVs) of TZS 599 129.6 and TZS 964
429.3 respectively; Benefit Cost Ratio (BCRs) of 1.4 and 1.8 respectively; and Internal
Rate of Return (IRR) of 15% and 16% respectively. The two treatment methods also
registered higher yields of 16.31 tons per hectare and 20.878 tons per hectare,
respectively, compared to other methods of treatment. It is concluded that higher yield is obtained when Rhodes grass are grown and using Cattle Farm Yard Manure mixed with
NPSZn or NPSZn mixed with Urea. It is recommended that with the experiments,
companies may produce enough fodder for themselves and extra to sell to other livestock
keepers. Moreover, smallholder dairy farmers should embark on improved fodder
production systems to bridge the existing dairy feed gap. |
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