Forages encompass a diverse range of plants including grasses, legumes, and other varieties, intended as a nutritional food source for animals. These forages can be provided in various forms, such as fresh, dried, or processed into hay, silage, or stubble. The forages are cultivated, collected, or allowed to grow in specific regions and tropical areas around the world.
For farmers in tropical regions, forages can provide a reliable and nutritious feed source for their livestock, improving their health and productivity, leading to increased income and improved livelihoods. Furthermore, tropical forages provide multiple ecosystem benefits such as mitigating climate change, increasing soil fertility, reversing land degradation, enhancing biodiversity, and optimizing resource use.
Tropical forages are often adapted to multiple stresses and can enhance resilience including in more constraint environments. Being the crop with the widest extension in growing area, improved forages are critical to reduce the land and other resources used for livestock production, and transforming performance in crop-livestock-tree interactions.
Researchers are interested in tropical forages' potential to improve livestock productivity, enhance systems performance and resilience, and maximize ecosystem and livelihood benefits. Through research, new and improved varieties of tropical forages are developed that are more tolerant to a variety of abiotic and biotic stresses.
Upscaling is a key part of tropical forages work at the Alliance, through interactions with a wide range of partners, leading to more efficient and sustainable crop-livestock-systems, which lead to higher yields, lower production costs, and ecosystems benefits.
The Alliance's research on tropical forages addresses the challenges of livestock production and crop-livestock-tree systems in tropical regions and – with the increasing impacts of climate change - is increasingly widening.
In 1967, along with the establishment of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) - now part of the Alliance - a designated team led by Loy Crowder created the ‘Pasture-Livestock Research and Training Program'.
In 1977, the germplasm collection had around 3,000 accessions of forages. In 1979, it changed its name to the Tropical Pastures Program, while other livestock research in animal health was phased out.
In 1988, breeding work focused on interspecific Urochloa (syn Brachiaria) grasses, that is U. brizantha × U. decumbens × U. ruziziensis.
In 1991, the program's work emphasized the characterization, evaluation, and selection of suitable grass and legume species and cultivars for the acid soils of the savannas. In addition to the work in Latin America, the program started research efforts in Southeast Asia.
In 1992, the program changed its name to the Tropical Forages Program.
Tropical forages are an important source of feed for livestock in tropical regions, and have multiple roles in the sustainability and resilience of crop-livestock-tree systems.
However, many forages cannot produce year-round feed of high quality and productivity, and are sometimes not tolerant to existing and emerging pests and diseases, thus limiting their use and reducing the productivity of livestock in the region. Furthermore, the expansion of livestock production is often associated with negative environmental impacts such as deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions and land degradation.
Our research is aimed at improving the productivity, sustainability and resilience of crop-tree-livestock in the tropics while reducing or reversing these negative impacts. The Alliance's program focuses on the selection and breeding of tropical forages that are nutritious, highly productive, and adapted to different biotic and abiotic stresses.
Furthermore, the program works on promoting and implementing the principles of regenerative agriculture through the integration of improved tropical forages in equitable multifunctional systems.
EXPLORE THEMATIC RESEARCH AREAS
It is our privilege to work with these organizations in our research on tropical forages:
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