Simon OostingWageningen University & Research | WUR · Faculty of Animal Sciences
Simon Oosting
Professor
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244
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Introduction
Publications
Publications (244)
Abstract
Tanzania is among the sub-Saharan African countries experiencing food insecurity and high rates of malnutrition in many forms, largely attributed to a lack of dietary diversity among disadvantaged households. The present study explores the potential of soybean-maize-chicken value chains to support the sustainable production of diversified...
Abstract
The increasing human population in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) implies that the demand for major cereals will triple while that for animal-sourced food will double by 2050. The present study explored scenarios to provide sustainable diets to feed the population in the Iringa region, in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania. It does so by assessi...
Breeding is a promising greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation option for the dairy sector that offers potential permanent and cumulative effects. However, there is limited understanding of how genetic traits affect GHG emissions from the dairy production chain and how breeding indices could be used to find a balance between GHG emissions and farm profit....
Sustainable forest management in South-East Asia is challenged by smallholder livestock husbandry as farmers supplement insufficient on-farm forage with resources extracted from forests. This study assesses which de- terminants affect forest resource extraction by investigating teak forest usage by Indonesian cattle farmers. Based on a survey of 60...
Tanzania is among the sub-Saharan African countries experiencing food insecurity due to high rates of malnutrition in many forms, largely attributed to a lack of dietary diversity among disadvantaged urban and rural households. Surprisingly, Tanzania's breadbasket regions important for food production have high rates of micronutrient deficiency, pa...
The objective of this study was to examine social networks in dairy value chains (DVCs) in Kenya and understand how DVC actors’ power relationships and trust influence their behaviour regarding milk quality. We conducted a stakeholder analysis using the Net-Map tool in Laikipia, Nakuru and Nyandarua counties in Kenya. VisuaLyzer software was used t...
The understanding of the role of using forest resources in the livelihood strategies of smallholder farmers is limited. Rural household surveys often omit this aspect. From a survey of 600 Indonesian cattle farmers, we apply the sustainable livelihood framework to investigate the role extracting forest resources has in livelihood strategies and hou...
The demand for chicken meat and eggs exceeds what can be produced in Tanzania, largely due to low productivity of the sector. Feed quantity and quality are the major factors determining the potential production and productivity of chickens. The present study explored the yield gap in chicken production in Tanzania and analyses the potential of incr...
Background:
Nitrate leaching to groundwater and surface water and ammonia volatilization from dairy farms have negative impacts on the environment. Meanwhile, the increasing demand for dairy products will result in more pollution if N losses are not controlled. Therefore, a more efficient, and environmentally friendly production system is needed,...
Intensification of agriculture in India has increased food self-sufficiency. However, it has also led to unwanted environmental impacts, particularly the increased pressure on groundwater resources. These impacts are most severe in the dryland regions of the country. Therefore, this paper aims to understand the impact of intensified forms of agricu...
In this study, we aimed to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of land reform (LR) farms (‘farm issues’) because the lack of understanding of these issues could partly be the cause of limited livelihood gains from these farms. Furthermore, the examination of these issues provided specific recommendations to each group of farms, which could improve...
This longitudinal study explored intra-annual variation in feed availability and the chemical composition of milk and feed resources at smallholder dairy farms in Nakuru county, Kenya. Feed and milk samples were collected for a full year, every last week of the month, from 43 purposively selected farms. Feed and milk samples were analysed for nutri...
Dairy farming may have negative impacts on the environment, such as ammonia emissions to air and nitrate leaching to water. By selecting more efficient cows, the amount of nitrogen excreted per cow and consequently the adverse environmental impacts will be reduced. The aim of this study was to predict nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) of individual dai...
The poultry industry in Tanzania has grown steadily over the past decade. We surveyed 121 chicken farming households along an intensification gradient from backyard to semi-intensive and intensive production systems based on rearing system and assumed purpose and poultry breed in the Iringa region. About 30% of households had more than one breed an...
Background
Nitrate leaching to groundwater and surface water and ammonia volatilization from dairy farms have negative impacts on the environment. Meanwhile, the increasing demand for dairy products will result in more pollution if N losses are not controlled. Therefore, a more efficient, and environmentally friendly production system is needed, in...
South Africa implemented land reform for the past two decades to contribute to addressing challenges posed by inequality, poverty and unemployment. Systematic classification of farming system types in land reform is lacking, and distinguishing the types with common characteristics (e.g. farm size, land use activities and livelihood strategies) is e...
With the concept of resilience being increasingly applied in farming systems research, there is general agreement that the resilience theory should be supported by sound assessment methodologies. Yet, in the extant literature, definitions and measures of resilience as a system outcome, a system capability or a process are often conflated, causing c...
Smallholder farmers in developing countries often lack resources. They rely mostly on extensive production approaches, such as cattle keeping and resort more to extracting forest resources at no charge. Our objective is to assess the relationship between the diversification of income sources, poverty and livelihood capital for smallholder farm hous...
Crop residues have the potential to alleviate annual feed shortages and nutrient deficiencies experienced in the dry season in the savanna zones of West Africa. Farmers in West Africa especially value the residues of grain legumes, also known as grain legume fodders (GLFs), as animal feed. In this study, therefore, we assessed the nutritional quali...
Papers from the Rural development report 2021
Farming systems are transitioning from a subsistence orientation to market orientation in response to changing food demands, technologies, and policies. In India's dryland regions, watershed development, among several other initiatives, has been a critical driver of these transitions, but their outcomes are poorly understood. The present paper inve...
p>This study aimed to estimate the optimum utilization of ruminant feed resources in tropical dry-land during dry and rainy seasons. Data concerning feed availability and quality were collected from Gunungkidul Regency of Indonesia over two seasons: the dry and rainy seasons. The JAVA program, the model, was used to estimate the availability of fee...
In the discourse about the development of farmed animal production (terrestrial livestock production and aquaculture) in the tropics, two important food system outcomes emerge: (1) to supply animal-sourced food (ASF) at a level that suffices healthy future diets, including for poor people, and (2) to contribute to climate change mitigation and mini...
In Tanzania, diets are dominated by starchy staple crops such as maize, levels of malnutrition are high and largely attributed to lack of dietary diversity. We employed fuzzy cognitive mapping to understand the current soybean, maize and chicken value chains, to highlight stakeholder relationships and to identify entry points for value chain integr...
Purpose
Life cycle assessment studies on smallholder farms in tropical regions generally use data that is collected at one moment in time, which could hamper assessment of the exact situation. We assessed seasonal differences in greenhouse gas emissions (GHGEs) from Indonesian dairy farms by means of longitudinal observations and evaluated the impl...
Milk production is an important livelihood source for smallholder dairy farmers in low-to-middle-income countries (LMICs) such as Kenya. However, milk quality and safety are a challenge due to unhygienic handling and non-adherence to food safety standards. The objective of this study was to investigate the knowledge, attitudes and adoption of milk...
Increasing food demands are causing rapid transitions in farming systems, often involving intensified land and resource use. While transitioning has benefits regarding poverty alleviation and food outputs, it also causes environmental and social issues over time. This study aims to understand the transitions in farming systems in a region in Telang...
The difference between the theoretical maximum (potential) production and the actual production realized by farmers is referred to as the yield gap. The objectives of this study are to develop a mechanistic model for dairy cows that allows yield gap analysis in dairy production systems and to evaluate model performance. We extended and adapted an e...
Climate change projections for the 21st century indicate an increase in the already high number of food-insecure people in India. While considerable research on vulnerability to climate change exists, research about Indian smallholder farming systems as a whole, encompassing farming strategies and development pathways in this context, is limited. H...
Agricultural policies can only be effective if intended beneficiaries are sufficiently aware of them. This basic condition for policy success is substantially challenged by smallholder farmers’ lack of awareness of existing support schemes. We studied the perceptions of 600 farmers of preservation policies for the traditional Indonesian Ongole catt...
Increasing demand for safe food in developing countries entails meeting stringent food safety requirements. Food retailers and regulatory bodies impose food safety measures related to production and handling of farm produce. For smallholders to remain competitive in such a system, institutional arrangements are necessary. We examine the role of pro...
Countries have pursued land reform (LR) to contribute towards equity, poverty alleviation and job creation. Land confiscation and market-assisted approaches are used the most in expediting LR. The approach adopted in each of the countries will depend on the prevailing circumstances and priorities of those advocating for LR. South Africa implemented...
Poor milk safety constitutes a persistent public health risk in Kenya. Poor milk composition, microbial contamination and adulteration is a constraint to dairy sector development. We hypothesise that variation in milk quality and safety depends on variation between farming systems. We argue that this variation between farming systems is associated...
The effect of proximity to markets on dairy farming intensity and market participation traditionally has been viewed as a market quality effect stemming from distance to end-markets with resultant travel time. This study departs from this by distinguishing three travel time components: travel time to local service center for inputs and services, to...
Background
The number of undernourished people and the risk of micro-nutrient deficiency remain high in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Decades of policy designed to reverse the trends of food insecurity have illustrated that the causal pathways of intervention to end-point outcomes, such as nutrition, are not necessarily straightforward. Utilising proxi...
Objective:
This study was conducted to provide models to accurately predict nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) excretion of dairy cows on smallholder farms in Indonesia based on readily available farm data.
Method:
The generic model in this study is based on the principles of the Lucas equation, describing the relation between dry matter intake (DM...
Feed scarcity is a major challenge for livestock production in West Africa, especially during the dry season when grass quality and quantity on grazing lands are inadequate. In the dry season, crop residues are a key source of livestock feed. The residues of grain legumes, also known as grain legume fodders (GLFs), are stored and traded for feeding...
Milk production per lactation (MPL) is a key metric of dairy farms. Accurate estimation of MPL requires regular recording, which is laborious and costly. In smallholder systems in the tropics, therefore, generally very few records are available to estimate MPL. Cross-sectional studies collect only one single record per lactation, and even longitudi...
The purpose of this study was to determine off-take rates in smallholder sheep farming systems in the Western Cape province of South Africa. A purposeful sampling technique was used where smallholder farmers were selected based on certain criteria. The criterion set out was that farmers must own between five and 100 sheep. Interviews were conducted...
Our understanding of food security in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has been hampered by limitations in the temporal and spatial representativeness of data. Food balance sheets provide scalable estimates of per capita food availability, but fail to represent food access, stability and their causal linkages. In contrast, rural household surveys represent...
In Tanzania, there is a large gap between food production and consumption, which contributes to high rates of undernourishment and micronutrient deficiencies. The dietary problems are mainly due to limited dietary diversity among households. Furthermore, increased urbanisation leads to an increase in demand for poultry products which is difficult t...
Increasing milk yield per cow is considered a promising climate change mitigation strategy for small-scale dairy farms in developing countries. As it can be difficult to increase cow productivity, mitigation options beyond this production strategy need to be identified. The aim of this study was to identify entry points for mitigation of GHG emissi...
Household surveys are one of the most commonly used tools for generating insight into rural communities. Despite their prevalence, few studies comprehensively evaluate the quality of data derived from farm household surveys. We critically evaluated a series of standard reported values and indicators that are captured in multiple farm household surv...
Based on farmer and value chain actor interviews, this comparative study of five emerging dairy clusters elaborates on the upgrading of farming systems, value chains, and context shapes transformations from semi-subsistent to market-oriented dairy farming. The main results show unequal cluster upgrading along two intensification dimensions: dairy f...
LiGAPS-Beef (Livestock simulator for Generic analysis of Animal Production Systems – Beef cattle) is a generic, mechanistic model designed to quantify potential and feed-limited growth, which provides insight in the biophysical scope to increase beef production (i.e. yield gap). Furthermore, it enables identification of the bio-physical factors tha...
We studied influence of distance to urban markets on smallholder dairy farming system development. Farms were chosen from three locations that varied in distance to the urban market of Nakuru Town in the Kenyan highlands: urban location (UL, n = 10) at less than 15 km distance, mid-rural location (MRL, n = 11) in between 20 and 50 km west of Nakuru...
The dairy sector in Kenya is an economically important sector providing employment and a source of income value chain actors. Although demand for milk and dairy products is high and increasing, sector growth is constrained by milk quality issues stemming from physical-chemical composition, microbial contamination and adulteration which pose a risk...
The model LiGAPS-Beef (Livestock simulator for Generic analysis of Animal Production Systems – Beef cattle) has been developed to assess potential and feed-limited growth and production of beef cattle in different areas of the world and to identify the processes responsible for the yield gap. Sensitivity analysis and evaluation of model results wit...
The expected increase in the global demand for livestock products calls for insight in the scope to increase actual production levels across the world. This insight can be obtained by using theoretical concepts of production ecology. These concepts distinguish three production levels for livestock: potential (i.e. theoretical maximum) production, w...
Mineral phosphorus (P) used to fertilise crops is derived from phosphate rock, which is a finite resource. Preventing and recycling mineral P waste in the food system, therefore, are essential to sustain future food security and long-term availability of mineral P. The aim of our modelling exercise was to assess the potential of preventing and recy...
Animal genetic resources (AnGR) are essential for food security and the livelihoods of many pastoralists. However, the AnGR diversity is currently being eroded, as well as the traditional ecological knowledge associated to the use of indigenous breeds and their environment. The objectives of this study were to: i) inventorise indigenous breeds of c...
Sustainable intensification is a strategy contributing to global food security. The scope for sustainable intensification in crop sciences can be assessed through yield gap analysis, using crop growth models based on concepts of production ecology. Recently, an analogous cattle production model named LiGAPS-Beef (Livestock simulator for Generic ana...
The dairy sector in Kenya is an economically important sector providing employment and a source of income value chain actors. Although demand for milk and dairy products is high and increasing, sector growth is constrained by milk quality issues stemming from physical-chemical composition, microbial contamination and adulteration which pose a risk...
Ongoing and projected changes to rural communities in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are unprecedented in scale and pace. This paper investigates to what extent significant changes in livelihoods, poverty and food security performance are already taking place. The study focuses on households in Lushoto district (n = 147), a remote but urban linked area o...
National challenges of food insecurity and unemployment in South Africa prompted an increase in expectations for agricultural land acquired through land reform programmes to make meaningful contributions. Embedded in these expectations is the need for understanding the situation in reformed farms. This study reviewed policies and literature on land...
Pastoralists have traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), which is important for their livelihoods and for policies and interventions. Pastoralism is under pressure, however, which may result in a decline of pastoral lifestyle and its related TEK. We, therefore, addressed the following objectives (i) to inventorise and assess how pastoralists chara...
Sustainable livestock production is important to ensure continuous availability of resources for future generations. Most smallholder livestock farming systems in developing countries have been perceived to be environmentally, socially and economically unsustainable. Farming with livestock that is robust and adaptable to harsh environments is impor...
While there is a general consensus that using dairy technologies, such as improved breeds of dairy cows, can substantially increase farm productivity and income, adoption of such technologies has been generally low in developing countries. The underlying reasons for non-adoption of beneficial technologies in the dairy sector are not fully understoo...
Assessment of milk quality along the dairy value chain in Mbeya and Songwe regions, Southern Highlands of Tanzania
African mixed crop–livestock systems are vulnerable to climate change and need to adapt in order to improve productivity and sustain people’s livelihoods. These smallholder systems are characterized by high greenhouse gas emission rates, but could play a role in their mitigation. Although the impact of climate change is projected to be large, many...