Livestock sustaining intensive smallholder crop production through traditional feeding practices for generating high quality manure-compost in upland Java

Information is needed on the biophysical and economic rationale for labour-demanding (and therefore, expensive) backyard animal rearing systems on smallholdings in the uplands of Java where livestock have been an integral part of highly intensive agriculture for centuries. The occurrence of high densities of ruminant livestock is counter-intuitive considering the extent and continuous nature of cropping on densely populated islands such as Java where little land remains suitable for grazing. As a consequence, livestock are permanently housed in backyards and fed indigenous forages cut from field margins and roadsides. Although cut-and-carry feeding is labour-intensive, it is surprising that farmers collect quantities of forage greatly in excess of the requirements of their livestock. In an experiment, indigenous forage was fed to sheep at increasing rates: 25, 50 or 75 g DM kg-' liveweight daily. The results showed that although DM intake and liveweight gain rose with increasing offer-rate, the incremental improvements from 50 to 75 were non-significant (p<0.05) and