Abstract
In southwest Niger, West Africa, fallows contribute little to crop land fertilityrestoration through crop and fallow cycles, because of their short duration andthe intensity of their use as a source for forage. However, they indirectlyplayan important role in crop land fertility, because they form the origin of alarge part of livestock-mediated nutrient transfers from rangelands to croplands, at least for households owning large herds. This study was carried outinthe village of Ticko, where forage resources originated from crop residues onfields during the dry season, and from plateau and fallow rangelands throughoutthe whole year. Fallow areas comprised 23% of the grazing resources. Theirforage production was relatively low: 1903 kg DMha−1 on average, during the period1996–2000, but they provided 38% of the palatable forage resources.Fieldsare manured every 5 years by night corralling of livestock on cropland. The average amounts of manure deposited on manured areas were 10.5tDM ha−1 yr−1. Despite a stocking rateof 24 Tropical Livestock Units (TLU) km−2 (250kg liveweight), equal to the carrying capacity, manured areascomprised only 9% of all crop lands. In total 394 t DM of manurewas transferred from natural grazing areas and non-manured crop lands tomanured fields, 62.5% originating from fallow areas and 31.5% from non-manuredcrop lands. This leads in the medium term to a decrease in fertility of a largepart of the fields owned by farmers and smallholder agro-pastoralists.Consequently, if this trend continues the system is not sustainable in the longterm.
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Achard, F., Banoin, M. Fallows, forage production and nutrient transfers by livestock in Niger. Nutrient Cycling in Agroecosystems 65, 183–189 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022111117516
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022111117516