RESUMO
Globally, the COVID-19 (SARSCoV-2) pandemic has affected human health and the flow of goods and services in many sectors, with significant social and economic consequences and repercussions. COVID-19 lockdowns have disrupted food systems; impacting farmers, food producers, traders and consumers. Using a food system approach, disruptions to and the resilience of vegetable food production and trade was analysed. Representatives of traditional farming systems in Lao PDR producing and trading vegetables were involved. Over 350 farmers, 60 wholesalers, 50 retailers and 70 consumers were surveyed to determine the disruptions to vegetable supplies in terms of quantities traded, prices and income fluctuations. Findings revealed significant impacts on trading capacity and consequent reductions in incomes, prices, purchases, transport and sales of produce. However, livelihoods resumed as soon as the lockdown lifted. Traditionally, vegetable production and trading are a woman's tasks and hence women were the most affected by the disruptions. With trading contractions, the stability of the food supply was threatened, but only temporarily, indicating that a traditional, resilient farming system based on lower population densities, lower input requirements and lower productivity could adapt to novel disruptions in the short term.
RESUMO
Small ruminants such as goats have a higher preference for browse species than cattle and sheep. In a meta-analysis of 42 papers describing 117 experimental treatments found by a search performed in June 2021 in PubMed and Web of Knowledge, we examined the general effect of including foliage in the diet of goats, replacing grasses, on dry matter intake and average daily weight gain. The inclusion requirement for a paper was that it described a controlled trial with a control diet of grass and with grass replaced by foliage in the experimental diet. Publication bias was estimated by calculating the Fail-safe n. Random effects analyses were conducted, using effect size calculated as Hedges' d. The results showed that inclusion of foliage increased feed intake (Hedges' d = 1.350, SE = 0.388) and average daily weight gain (Hedges' d = 1.417, SE = 0.444) compared with a grass-based control. The positive effect of foliage inclusion on dry matter intake was associated with lower neutral detergent fiber (NDF) and higher crude protein (CP) in the foliage than in the grass it replaced. The positive effect on average daily weight gain was associated with higher CP concentration in the foliage than in grass. Foliage inclusion level showed a quadratic relationship with dry matter intake, with maximum dry matter intake achieved at a level of 50-60%. There was wide variation between the studies reviewed, and this variation was not reduced by subgroup analysis based on different kinds of foliage. In conclusion, the addition of foliage to goat diets can increase feed intake and daily weight gain, as an effect of the dietary preferences of goats and of generally higher nutritional value in foliage species compared with natural/semi-natural grass species.
RESUMO
The effect of feeding different levels of foliage from Erythrina variegata on the performance of growing goats was studied using a local breed (Ma T'ou) with an average initial body weight of 11.2 kg (SD = 0.9). Twenty-four animals were allocated to a randomized design, with six animals (three males and three females) per treatment. The treatments were four different levels of replacement of the diet crude protein (CP) with CP from Erythrina foliage (EF) at 0 % (E-0), 20 % (E-20), 40 % (E-40), and 60 % (E-60). There were no significant differences in the dry matter (DM) intake between treatments, but total CP intake was significantly higher in the goats fed the diet E-60 compared to E-20 (61.1 and 51.4 g/day, respectively). The average daily liveweight gain of the goats did not differ between treatments and ranged from 51 to 63 g/day. Sixteen animals were kept in metabolism cages for a digestibility study and given with the same four diets as in the main experiment. The digestibility of DM, organic matter, neutral detergent fiber, and acid detergent fiber was significantly higher for diet E-60 than for E-0. Neither the apparent digestibility of CP and N retention nor carcass characteristics (16 animals) differed with an increase in the level of CP from EF in the diets. In conclusion, CP from EF can replace up to 60 % of CP from a mixed diet with soybean meal without any negative effect on the growth in goats.