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The mission team included of Mr Colin
Burton (waste system engineer), Dr Harald Menzi (agronomist), Dr Peter
Thorne (software specialist) and Ms Nawarat Chalermpao (assistant
coordinator, RFO) visited the Project Management Officers (PMO) and
local experts in Thailand, Vietnam and China during 7-13 May 2009 to
present the progress on a computer based software package of the
Decision Support Tool (DST) on manure management practices(STRAW:
Support for the Treatment and Recycling of Animal Wastes).
STRAW is a system to assess manure
streams for intensive livestock production with the aim of controlling
negative impacts for the environment and supporting the user in
choosing and implementing an optimal manure management strategy. The
aim is also to use the livestock waste more efficiently by recycling it
in crop production.
The PMO and local experts provides the
feedbacks on the first impression at the first view of the software,
its user friendliness, and the aspects that should be changed,
improved, and added to the package.
The mission team also met with national
counterparts (data coordinators) to finalize STRAW data file.
For more details, please see the
consultants’ report on STRAW mission here
The first CoSiMo mission led by Dr. Ge
Backus (senior economist, Wageningen University) and Ms Nawarat
Chalermpao (assistant coordinator, RFO) was held in Thailand, Vietnam
and China during 12-20 February 2009. The team met with policy
researchers and policy officers from each country to present and
discuss on the concept and planned activities of CoSiMo.
CoSiMo is a decision support tool that
focuses on the farmer cost of compliance and determines expected
consequences of alternative policy options. It focuses on policies that
induce farmers to adopt environmental friendly practices, to remove
farms to another location, or eventually to close farms. The cost
effectiveness of these policies has to be evaluated in relation to the
autonomous industry development towards less and larger farms.
The mission aims at getting the industry
picture shape, by evaluating and discussing on the data collection for
the pig industry module and the cost of compliance module. It also
discuss on policy options, countries' typical farm types and time frame
of the study.
Please click
here for more details of the CoSiMo concept.
The Regional Facilitation Office (RFO),
FAO organized the fourth regional coordination group (RCG) meeting on
the Livestock Waste Management in East Asia Project (GCP/RAS/215/WBG)
from 15 to 16 February 2009 in Vung Tau, Vietnam.
RCG members from China, Thailand,
Vietnam and the RFO attended the meeting. The countries'
representatives presented a project progress in their countries to the
meeting. The RFO showed the progress of Decision Support Tools
development and an annual work plan for 2009. The RCG members made
additional recommendations to the project implementation and approved
the work plan for 2009.
Prior to the meeting, the RCG members
visited Tien Phong Pig Husbandry Association, Cu Chi district, Ho Chi
Minh city. The RCG members were really interested and impressed by the
works of this association.
Please click
here for more information and presentations from the fourth RCG
meeting
Department of Livestock Development
(DLD), Thailand arranged the workshops on spirulina cultivation on
treated water from pig farms during 7 and 9 January 2009 in Rachaburi
and Nakormpratom provinces. The participants were pig farmers and DLD
officers in these 2 provinces.
Spirulina is a source of protein,
carotenoids, chlorophyll, vitamin B12, Gamma Linoric acid and others.
It is used as a nutritional and therapeutic supplement for human. Also,
it is used in animal feed, especially fancy fish, red carp, carp feed.
DLD in collaboration with the Algae Biotechnology Center of King
Mongkut Institution of Technology, Thonburi (KMITT) have studied the
possibility of spirulina cultivation on treated water from pig farm for
use as an animal feed.
KMITT has installed two types of tanks
for spirulina cultivation. Small tanks were installed in a small farm
(100 pigs) in Nakormprathom. Experimental tanks were installed in a
large farm (15,000 pigs) in Rachaburi. Spirulina can be cultivated in
both types of farm. The research showed that treated water from pig
farm can be used for cultivating spirulina. More study on marketing
opportunity will be done by KMITT.
For those who are interested, please
contact Mr Arux Chaiyakul, PMO manager, DLD, Thailand at aruxch@yahoo.com
GyeongGi-Do Province, the Republic of
Korea and FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific jointly
organized the regional training on mitigating green house gas (GHG)
emissions from landless livestock production in East Asia. The training
was conducted from 1 to 4 December 2008 in Suwon, the Republic of
Korea.
Climate change is still a relatively new
scientific domain, and its interaction with the livestock sector even
more so. Addressing the public and private sector, the training
addressed both the technical and policy dimensions of the
livestock-climate change nexus. Given the growing importance of
intensive animal production systems in the region, the training focused
of the mitigation of green house gas emissions from these sources.
Click
here for presentations, photos and more information on the
workshop
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