Online Reporter
Sifelani Tsiko
Fact Check Editor
World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Zimbabwe has launched a new initiative to develop a satellite-based system that can help farmers optimise livestock grazing to improve nutrition, increase productivity and reduce emissions.
This initiative, called the Time2Graze project and funded by the Global Methane Hub, will equip farmers in Latin America and Africa with tools that assess pasture availability to identify the optimal time to graze livestock.
As part of the project, WWF Zimbabwe will develop a Decision Support Tool (DST) for use by farmers in the Binga community
An estimated two-thirds of agricultural land is used for grazing livestock around the world, but the availability of grazed forage varies significantly by season and is increasingly threatened by climate change.
Pasture availability and digestibility impact both milk and meat output, as well as methane emissions, which are produced during digestion.
By tracking pasture levels across areas of 10mx10m every five days, the Time2Graze project would provide near-real-time satellite-based estimates of grassland biomass so that farmers can more effectively decide where and when they allocate pasture to their cattle. Improvements in feed digestibility of just 10 percent have been found to result in 20 percent reductions in methane emissions.
Says project lead, Hlengani Dube: “Smallholder farmers of Binga are expected to improve their pastures through improved grazing management practices”.
This project will also be implemented in partnership with the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Department of Livestock Production and Research (LPDR), Shangani Holistic Ranch, Lupane State University (LSU), Binga community.
It will engage with farmers and extension workers to refine and implement seven country-specific decision support tools based on the testing carried out on 115 on-farm trial sites.
The tool will help address inefficiencies in livestock grazing systems.
In both tropical areas and subtropical and temperate zones, forage harvest levels are about 50 per cent of their potential. At the same time, grazing or mixed systems account for an estimated 98 percent of methane from livestock digestion, with 78 percent coming from countries in the Global South.
“Grazing livestock systems are common worldwide, but they are both highly variable and seasonally constrained,” said Dr. Santiago Rafael Fariña, senior agriculture program officer at the Global Methane Hub.
“The Time2Graze project aims to empower farmers with real-time information about the standing biomass of pasture to sustainably increase milk and meat production while also bringing down methane emissions.”
