Tracie Dang
Elsie Fullerton
Jin Kyung-Kim
Greta Soos
3/15/15
Silage Production to Alleviate Malnutrition in Cows in
Nicaragua
Tracie Dang
Elspeth Fullerton
Jin Kyung-Kim
Greta Soos
3/15/15
D-Lab Winter 2015
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Tracie Dang
Elsie Fullerton
Jin Kyung-Kim
Greta Soos
3/15/15
Table of Contents
Meet the Team…………………………………………………………………………page 3
Executive Summary…………………………………………………………………...page 4
Final Problem Definition……………………………………………………………...page 4-5
Background…………………………………………………………………………....page 5-7
Methodology…………………………………………………………………………...page 8-12
Results………………………………………………………………………………….page 12-17
Recommandations……………………………………………………………………..page 18-20
Project Reflection……………………………………………………………………...page 20-21
References……………………………………………………………………………...page 21-22
Appendices……………………………………………………………………………..page 22-23
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Tracie Dang
Elsie Fullerton
Jin Kyung-Kim
Greta Soos
3/15/15
Meet the Team!
Tracie Dang
I am a fourth year undergraduate student majoring in Animal
Biology and minoring in Global Disease Biology.
Elspeth Fullerton
I am a fourth year undergraduate student majoring in Genetics and
Genomics and minoring in English.
Jin Kyung-Kim
I am a Masters student in Biological Systems Engineering studying
the microbial degradation of agriculture residues for biofuel
production. I graduated from Bowdoin College in Brunswick,
Maine with a degree in Physics and a minor in music.
Greta Soos
I am a third year undergraduate student majoring in Environmental
Policy Analysis and Planning.
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Elsie Fullerton
Jin Kyung-Kim
Greta Soos
3/15/15
1. Executive Summary
Each year those residing in the community of Sabana Grande, Nicaragua, face a problem
during the dry season. From January to June, when the pasture dries up, community members are
left with no cheap, accessible means of nourishing their cattle (Climate 1). When the cattle begin
to starve they lose the ability to reproduce and stop producing milk—rendering them useless and
burdensome to their owners. Though most community members regard dairy furnishings as
supplemental to their core diet, many could do with the extra nourishment and alleviation of the
stress that is associated with food insecurity (Lopez, 2015). Further, year-round access to dairy
products could yield not only better nourished citizens but could also provide economic
opportunities for those looking to fill what may be a newly available market niche. UC Davis
veterinary students who traveled to Sabana Grande in the summer of 2014 identified silage as a
good solution to the problem of malnourished cows (Sorenson, 2014). Silage harnesses the
energy from crop residues that are cheap and might otherwise be discounted as a means of
furthering nutrition. The silage process essentially uses cattle as machines via which the
inaccessible energy found in Sabana Grande’s sorghum-like crop residues is converted into
nutrients found within dairy products, making those calories available to people.
In conjunction with our client, Hilario Lopez, the D-lab Silage Team has identified three
means of addressing the malnutrition cattle problem. The first goal is to develop a silage chopper
that can reduce the workload associated with reducing crop parts into fine pieces (chopping by
hand with a machete is prohibitively time consuming—especially as many community members
regard time as their most precious commodity). Referring to Appendix 2 shows an image of
Hilario chopping crop residue by hand with a machete in order to make silage. Community
education services will also be developed regarding silage and cattle nutrition upon development
and implementation of the silage chopper. The D-lab Silage Team is further exploring the
possibility of implementing holistic management and planned grazing strategies into the
community as part of a long-term and inter-disciplinary solution to the skinny cow problem. The
group has secured grant funding and will be traveling to Sabana Grande during the summer of
2015.
2. Final Problem Definition
Sabana Grande is a small farming community in Nicaragua where cow nutrition is
insufficient primarily due to food shortages caused by lack of pasture and grass growth during
the dry season. In order to alleviate malnutrition among their cattle community member Hilario
Lopez is looking to silage production, a practice which makes use of dry grasses and forage, to
nourish Sabana Grande’s cows during these yearly periods of famine. Unfortunately, there is
currently no efficient way for community members to chop forage, a key component of the silage
production process. Farmers chop forage by hand, a practice which is labor intensive and time
inefficient to the degree that community members allow their cattle to starve instead. Our D-lab
Silage Team has the goal of either identifying or producing an effective chopper for the
community to use in making silage. The preferred chopper design is one that is cost efficient,
economically viable, safe to use, easy to use, and environmentally friendly. The Silage Team has
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Elsie Fullerton
Jin Kyung-Kim
Greta Soos
3/15/15
spent 10 weeks identifying options that best fit these criteria and exploring solutions to other
limitations in the production of silage in Sabana Grande, Nicaragua.
3. Background
3.1 Community Background: Sabana Grande
Sabana Grande is a community in the Madrid Province of Nicaragua with a reported
population of 2,000 humans and 60 cows (Lopez 2015). This rural region lies among the
mountains of Totogalpa, only 20 miles from the border of Honduras. Since 1999 this small
agricultural community has harbored an NGO, Grupo Fenix, which works with land-mine
survivors affected during the country’s civil war between the Sandinistas and the Contras
(Guevara-Stone 2015). Most families do not have an income, although there is a thriving solar
business. Totogalpa is Nicaragua’s second poorest region. The typical citizen of Sabana Grande
features a fourth-grade education (Guevara-Stone).
An assessment of available community resources is featured in our “Results” table.
3.2 State of Cows in Sabana Grande
Livestock keeping practices by rural, small scale farmers are far less productive than
those of industrialized farmers, but livestock in lower income communities have the capacity to
alleviate poverty and provide better health and nutrition to the communities it serves (Randolph,
2007). Members of the community of Sabana Grande received cows through the Bono
Productivo Almentario (BPA) which focuses on strengthening food security and improving
family nutrition through the distribution of livestock (Reyes, 2014).
Dairy supplements a family’s diet providing needed proteins and fats to limited diets, and
excess milk can be sold to supplement family income. However, the animal’s health may suffer
without adequate access to feed, caused by cost of feed and other resource constraints. The dairy
cows in the Sabana Grande (SG) community of Nicaragua are an example of malnourished
animals. There are about 20 cow owners in the community, each with 2-3 pasture-raised cows.
During the dry season, which is November to April, the cows have limited access to pasture
lands and food. These cows are mainly kept for dairy production to supplement the families’
diet, but unhealthy cows have many downstream effects on the animal and family. Not only does
the cow not produce milk, but also the cow may be more susceptible to illness, which will add
additional financial burdens to the family. While cow owners do not fully rely on the milk
production, the added nutritive benefit of the milk improves the health of the family and
therefore the overall community. Today, cattle owners in SG have become accustomed to
reduced or halted milk production during the winter months.
In 2012, UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine developed a One Health project in
Sabana Grande, which investigated the overall health of the community by conducting a survey
to understand the needs of the humans, animals, and environment. The students identified the
importance of improving animal and human health and began conducting educational workshops
to promote the connection between livestock health the overall community welfare (Sorenson,
2014). During their time in Nicaragua they learned that cattle do not receive proper nutrition
during the dry season. Besides their physically skinny appearance, cattle are not reproductively
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Elsie Fullerton
Jin Kyung-Kim
Greta Soos
3/15/15
healthy and have lower milk production during the dry season. The students’ survey responses
ranged from 50%-100% reduction in milk production from wet to dry season. Typical cows
produce milk for about 10 months after they have calved, however this is not always the case in
SG. In SG the cows are bred once they are a few years old and then impregnated by a rented or
borrowed bull every one to two years to maintain milk production (Lopez, 2015). Cows in SG
produce about 3.9-3.8 liters of milk per cow per day (Sorenson 2014) compared to 30 liters of
milk per cow per day produced by an average industrially raised American cow (Dairy Moos).
Cows that are not properly fed will produce less milk, and studies have shown that pasture raised
cows in the United States produce 11.1% less milk than cows that are confined (White 2002).
Though the milk production may be lower, the quality of the milk is higher as cows are naturally
pasture grazing animals. Most cows in the US are fed a carefully engineered diet of grain,
roughage, silage and vitamins for maximum milk yield. For high milk yield, cows must eat large
amounts of feed, around 2-4% of their body weight (Wheeler, 2003). Most dairy cows are fed
grain with forage and given protein supplements, but the cows in the SG community are pastureraised and underfed for many months of the year. They also do not receive many dietary
supplements to amend their pasture diets. The veterinary students from UC Davis identified
silage as a possible resource that can improve the cattle health during the dry season.
3.3 Holistic Resource Management
Holistic resource management is a practice, championed by Allan Savory, which involves
bunching and moving cattle among different areas of pastureland, taking into account social,
environmental, and economic phenomena (TED Talk). It has four cornerstones:
1. Succession of plants, animals, and soils together as one entity
2. Water cycle in the ecosystem
3. Mineral cycle in the ecosystem
4. Energy flow through the ecosystem
The key to management, according to Savory, is manipulation (via control and understanding) of
the soil surface (Savory 156).
Savory describes holistic resource management as a “goal oriented” practice that is
ideally suited to brittle environments. A brittle environment is one that experiences prolonged
periods of the year during which environmental or climate conditions deter plant growth. Sabana
Grande, with its six-month dry season, precisely fits this definition (Savory 155-6).
In Sabana Grande holistic resource management would, ideally, serve to reduce the
community’s dependence on silage and other food matter outside of pasture-feeding the cattle.
Holistic management is a multi-faceted idea—one that is simultaneously simple in theory and
complex in its application. It is simple in that it aims to use livestock in order to “mimic nature”
(TED Talk). But natural processes, especially within the context of complex network
interactions, are a difficult entity to mimic.
There are dangers associated with committing to a holistic management plan with
“enthusiasm that is unmatched by knowledge” (Savory 155). For instance, Savory warns against
settling for “short duration grazing.” Such a practice may seem like a simplified version of
holistic land management, but can lead, instead, to disastrous results. “No matter how short the
grazing periods, overgrazing will result unless the grazing periods are what [Savory] calls “time-
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Jin Kyung-Kim
Greta Soos
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controlled” which means that grazing periods relate to the daily growth rate of the plants in the
growing season” (158). Further considerations include the time that the animals are slotted to
return back to the land and the availability of pastoral grasses to meet the requirements of the
cattle.
As discussed in our “Community Background” section cattle owners in Sabana Grande
may range from owning a solitary cow to individually owning up to 10 head. Community
members, besides varying in the number of cows they own, also have access to differing
amounts of pastoral land from which to nourish these cattle. A cornerstone of holistic
management is bunching livestock together and then moving them among the available pastoral
land in a planned manner. For holistic management to work well in Sabana Grande it would
require the community to be extremely cooperative with one another. Given that each
community member is bringing a proportionally different number of cattle (which would directly
correlate to the output in terms of amount of pasture food resources consumed) and that different
community members are providing different inputs (in terms of the amount of land contributed to
the cause) there is a certain amount of social understanding and caution that needs to be
exercised in such a situation.
Furthermore, as conceded by Savory, for holistic management to be done properly one
needs to be both invested in its study and willing to commit to the process. Such an undertaking
would likely require somebody to rigorously oversee the planning and operation of such an
endeavor. Hilario, as the farm leader in Sabana Grande and somebody who is already invested in
this project, may make a good candidate.
3.4 Four Lenses Analysis (Overview of Project)
Economic
•
•
•
Technology
•
Affordability of chopper
Cost of unit and/or materials
Cost of fuel (for diesel powered
chopper)
•
•
•
Culture
•
•
•
Energy inputs from each chopper
design
Chopping mechanism (ease of use or
not)
Chopped quality (chop silage in ideal
lengths or not)
Reliability (if the chopper last over
time with few repairs)
Environment
•
•
•
Community buy-in of our project goals
Usability of chopper from community
Educational outreach about silage
benefits and silage production
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Sustainability
Environmental impact
Holistic land management
Tracie Dang
Elsie Fullerton
Jin Kyung-Kim
Greta Soos
3/15/15
4. Methodology
4.1 Stakeholders and Mentors
The D-lab Silage Team relied on an extensive network of mentors and collaborators to
provide the group with knowledge, ideas, and support. To understand the community needs of
those living in Sabana Grande the team relied heavily upon these individuals to provide us with
information regarding the different facets of our project. The primary means of garnering
information regarding Sabana Grande was via client Hilario Lopez, a farm leader in the
community who is significantly invested in this project and agreed to weekly interviews via
Skype.
We have identified the stakeholders in this project to be the following:
Stakeholders
Small farm cattle
owners in Sabana
Grande
The small farm cattle owners would be highly involved since the dry
season affects their cattles’ health and nutrition, which therefore affects
their milk production which the owners depend on.
Small farmers’ cattle
The dry season directly affects the cattles’ health especially if there is
not enough pasture for the cattle to graze on.
Hilario Lopez, Vet
Promoter and Farm
Leader
Our main client who is an active community leader to help us
implement a chopper and educational workshops.
Food and Dairy
Markets
Inefficient milk production from cattle due to malnutrition during the
dry seasons can lead to unsuccessful market sales of milk and cheese.
4.2 Cost Assumptions
4.2.1 Feed
Client Hilario stated that one cow can eat about 45 kg of fresh grass each day. Taiwan
grass is typically 20% dry matter which amounts to 9kg dry matter intake per day. The main crop
they ensile is sorghum at a 65% moisture content (DM). There are biomass losses during the
ensiling process as the microbial activity will degrade some of the residue as it ferments. This
loss ranges from 6%-20% depending on silage conditions. The team is assuming about 10%
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Elsie Fullerton
Jin Kyung-Kim
Greta Soos
3/15/15
losses which converts to 15.4 kg of residue results in 1 day of cattle feed. For the driest time of
the year, from February to April we can assume that 1,386 kg of residue must be chopped to feed
one cow.
4.2.2 Feed Calculations (per Cow for 3 months)
Grass:
mass of grass x moisture content of grass = dry matter
ex.
DMI fresh grass:
45 kg x 0.20 kg dry matter/ total = 9 kg dmi /day
Ensiled sorghum:
mass of dry matter (kg) / (percent moisture content of sorghum x percent dry matter after
ensilage)
ex.
Sorghum needed for 1 day of feed:
9kg / (0.65 moisture content x 0.90 dry matter after fermentation) =15.4 kg sorghum
feed/day
Total feed needed for 3 months:
15.4kg x 90 days= 1386 kgs
Purchased animal feed:
assuming animal feed is similar in moisture content to grass
daily grass consumption (kg/day)x cost of feed ($/kg)= $ /day
ex. 45 kg/day x $0.80/kg= $36/day
Total hours to feed 1 cow during 3 months of dry season:
total feed needed for 3 months (kg) / throughput (kg/hr) = number of hours
Total recurring cost of feeding 1 cow during 3 months of dry season:
(cost of feedstock ($/kg) x total feed needed for 3 months) + (cost of diesel ($/liter) x diesel used
(liters)= recurring cost of feed ($)
Total cost of feeding animals in first year of dry season:
total recurring cost + investment cost = total cost of feeding animal in first year
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Elsie Fullerton
Jin Kyung-Kim
Greta Soos
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4.2.3 Machines Cost Analysis
There are several common ideas as to what machinery would work best as a forage
chopper. The most important component of any chopper is the mechanism used to chop the
silage, the blade. This blade can be moved and powered both manually or by diesel or electric
power. The qualifications for a best fit chopper for the community would ultimately be solar
powered, safe to use, fast, and efficient. These parameters may be unlikely to meet, so research
was conducted on all machine possibilities. Possible choppers include a hand powered chopper, a
pedal powered flywheel design, a solar powered chopper, a repurposed lawnmower, and a diesel
chopper. There are several ways to combine power supply to some of these choppers. For
instance, a pedal powered flywheel design could also be converted into a diesel powered
flywheel design, or a repurposed lawnmower could be powered by diesel or electricity.
Machine
Assumptions
diesel chopper
•
$600-1200
solar powered
chopper
•
Client Hilario Lopez stated that solar units are approximately $600
•
An electric chopper on alibaba.com costs about $200
pedal powered
•
bike frame is available and will cost ~$60
•
cutter blade and shaft are available and cost ~$80
•
additional materials cost ~$60
•
total cost ~$200
•
lawnmower is not available in Sabana Grande, but it can be
transported there
•
Uses diesel at rate similar to chopper
•
cuts residue at have the rate of diesel chopper at 200kg/hr
•
cost ~$100
•
8 metal flat blades (machetes) will cost ~$24
•
Wooden boards available and cost ~$8
•
Additional materials cost ~$33
•
Total cost ~$65
repurposed
lawnmower
hand powered
chopper
4.3 Community Analysis
We further understood the community’s food and material resources, lifestyle, cattle and
silage knowledge by researching Sabana Grande’s geographical, economical and social aspects
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Greta Soos
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through scientific articles and by facilitating weekly interviews with Hilario. We specifically
analyzed the primary stakeholder who is being affected in the community and critically asked
questions towards ideal solutions that we may realistically implement for the community.
First off, we determined our number one stakeholder is the cattle of small farmers in
Sabana Grande whose health is affected during the dry season due to the scarcity of pasture and
grasses for the cattle to graze on. From there, we asked ourselves the “big picture” questions like:
what other feed alternatives are available for the cattle? How does this affect the small farm
cattle owners’ lifestyle economically and socially? What are the small farmers current actions to
relieve this problem? What does our client Hilario want from D-Lab to help solve this issue?
How can our team help alleviate this problem from what interventions?
After we noted these important scope questions, we further researched and analyzed how
the production of silage was the best solution for the cattle especially during the dry seasons and
how designing a forage chopper for the community is much needed and asked for from Hilario.
After knowing this, we further researched more scientific articles and wrote our different sector
papers specializing in certain aspects of our project (silage benefits and production, industrial
forage choppers, hand-powered choppers, holistic land management). We also continued to have
weekly interviews with Hilario asking more specific questions about the feedstock the
community uses, specific costs of feed, what the feed was made of, material costs needed for a
chopper design, the costs of crop residues, the challenges producing silage, how much land is
available for crops and grazing during the dry and wet seasons, etc.
Thus, this section was a huge portion of our feasibility analysis of further understanding
the community’s needs and available resources. This helped us narrow down our project goals
into realistic and straightforward solutions that can be implemented into the community and help
satisfy our client’s needs as well.
4.4 Projected Addition of Value
Surplus residues, unused by local farmers, will be sold to the community’s cattle owners.
Demand for these residues is currently low, though the success of this project could create a
more competitive market. Currently, the production of silage turns a very low-value commodity
into a high-value asset (that is, cattle feed). The cow itself turns the silage into calories and
nutrients that humans can then access via food.
By having year-round access to the nutritional benefits conferred by dairy products, via a
process that requires relatively low time and energy inputs, community members will be able to
devote their attention to other pursuits and endeavors beyond ensuring that they and their
families are fed. Food security at a community level can open up other doors as members are
able to thrive and devote their attention beyond day to day survival.
Cattle owners, right now, are letting their cows starve rather than expending the large
amounts of time and energy that would be necessary to feed them. They regard dairy foods as
supplemental to diet staples and do not usually go out of their way to purchase them outside of
the community. As such, this silage production practice will not be undercutting other business
(i.e. a cattle feed producer or commercial dairy salesman).
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Entrepreneurial opportunities may arise in terms of the chopper itself (replicating it via
supplies from the local hardware store), renting out choppers to other communities, or via selling
surplus dairy products to neighbors and other local residents.
5. Results
5.1 Client Interviews
Hilario Lopez is our main client and our first hand communicator from the community
that has formed the basis of this project. His notions were our directions as to what the goal was.
In order to better define the situation, the team asked many questions about the community,
cows, and silage production in the community. Below is a table laying out data from the
following conversations:
Cows
Community
Silage
Number: ~ 60
cows total.
Silage knowledge: No silage is in
production at the moment. There are 3
diesel powered choppers in the
community, and one person is willing
Feed: They are
to share.
mostly grazing
pasture. Some
-Half the community knows about
remains of
silage production and its benefits
sorghum crop as
-Some community members chop up
well.
the material and give it to the cows
-Cows are fed dry
without fermenting, or they store it in
grass or hay in the conditions that can grow mold which
dry season.
can make the cows sick.
-Some nutritional
Resources: There is a welder in the
blocks so the cattle community
don’t lose weight: With workshops and facilitation
molasses,
rotational grazing is a possibility.
semolina, lime,
-Totogalpa has hardware stores and
urea, salt
welders and its 5 km away
-1500 cordobas is a rough estimate for
monthly expenses a family of 5
Cost: One head
-Hilario doesnt make more than 2000
cattle must pay 150 on a good month and some are
cordobas every
unemployed or occasionally employed
month to graze
-Available Land: some have 1mz, some
commercial land
have ½, some rent land
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Feedstock used: Pasture,
Taiwan Grass, Sorghum, Corn.
current production:Silage
produced by hand chopping and
storing in a 100 lb plastic bag 0.5
m in the ground
-3 men 1 hr with machete 100
lbs
Challenges: Main issue is using
machetes and bags. Machete
leaves big chucks that rip
through the bag.
Seasons: November-April driest
time. February, March and April
are the toughest
-August is dry as well mini
summer (canicula)
Cost:
-The crop residue from one
manzana (7000 m^2) of sorghum
costs them 200 cordobas 500 lbs
-Hilario has more or less
measured: feeds 2 cows for a day
on 200 lbs of grass fresh from
600 m^2
Tracie Dang
Elsie Fullerton
Jin Kyung-Kim
Greta Soos
3/15/15
Current state:
6 people including
Hilario have:
3 cows in
production
8 are pregnant
(they will calve at
different times)
Plans: Forage chopper would be shared
in the community
-CRITERIA
 economic (diesel is cheaper
than gasoline and electricity)
 environmental
 ease of use
 safety of use
-Community would like to use diesel
because it saves them time. Payment
plans aren’t options because of having
no jobs sometimes.
-Cow feed is too expensive. One
100 lb bag is 1000 cordobas,
way too much, no one sells
silage
-Current large chopper: Yamaha,
funnel fed chipper
-50 Cordobas per litre of diesel.
They can chop 300 pounds worth
of silage material per litre of
diesel
5.2 Chopper Design Criteria
We formulated an official Chopper Design Criteria that can help us and our client to
build a chopper that is the most sustainable and efficient for the Sabana Grande Community. Our
criteria are made up of only five simple steps stated in the following:
a.
a.
a.
a.
1. Economically Affordable
a. Diesel is preferred over electric and bike-powered due to time saving according to
Hilario ($1.80 USD per liter of diesel chops 300lbs of residue)
b. A family of 5 makes ~$27 USD monthly
2. Mechanically Efficient
A chopper with highest throughput (kg/hr)
3. Ease of Use
A chopper that takes the least amount of effort to chop silage
4. Safety of Use
A chopper that is not hazardous towards the people using it
5. Environmentally Sustainable
Does not cause huge environmental damage like air pollution
5.3 Cost Benefit Analysis
Overall, so far the most cost effective forage chopper design seems to be the repurposed
lawnmower and the choppers with the most time saved per hour are the diesel-powered and the
solar-powered choppers. The following choppers are shown in a comparison table describing the
specific economic, technologic, environmental and cultural differences whereas the graph show
the cost and time saved of chopping per hour of all the choppers.
5.3.1 Comparison Table
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manual
machete
chopping
Diesel
powered
chopper
solar
powered
chopper
Bike
powered
chopper
Animal feed manual
price
chopper
repurposed
lawnmower
Economic
cost ($/unit)
$0.00
$900 *
$300 **
$200.00
$0.00
$0.00
$100.00
total
investment
cost
$10.00
$900.00
$800.00
$200.00
$0.00
$65.00
$100.00
cost of power
N/A
$1.86/liter
of diesel *
0
0
0
N/A
$1.86/liter of
diesel *
cost of
feedstock
($/kg)
$0.03
$0.03
$0.03
$0.03
$0.80
$0.03
$0.03
15 kg/hr*
400 kg/hr
**
~400
kg/hr
116 kg/hr***
N/A
~15x(8
blades) =
~100 kg/hr
200 kg/hr **
cost of
chopping
($/kg)
0
136kg/liter
of diesel
Solar
maintena
nce
cost of
workers
time
N/A
0
68kg/liter of
diesel
total hours to
feed 1 cow
during 3
months of
driest time
92.4
3.5
3.5
11.95
0
15
6.93
total recurring
cost of
feeding 1 cow
during 3
months of
driest time
$41.60
$60.60
$41.60
$41.60
$3,240.00
$41.60
$78.60
Total cost:
investment
and feeding
$51.60
$960.60
$841.60
$241.60
$3,240.00
$106.60
$178.60
throughput (kg
chopped/hr)
Technology
rotating blade
chopping
mechanism
machete
rotating
blade
rotating
blade
rotating
blade
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N/A
gravity pulldown blades
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diesel
energy source
quality of
chopped
residue
manualpowered
diesel
pedalpowered
solar
N/A
manualpowered
high
low
high
high
medium
high
medium
environmental
impact (1, low 3, high)
1
3
2
1
3
1
3
upkeep (1, low
- 3, high)
1
2
2
3
N/A
1
2
Environment
availability (1,
low - 3, high)
1
3
2
2
1
3
3
low
high
medium
medium
low
low
low
easy to use
easy to use,
efficient, and
cost effective
5 weeks
Culture
/Society
client interest *
convenient
and known
benefits
process
highly
efficient
easy and
known
environment
ally
source of
efficient
favorable high nutrition
building hr
0
0
2 weeks
4 weeks
1 week
mobility
portable/
stationary
stationary
stationary
stationary
user scale
individual
community
communit
y
community
costly,
loud, fuel
smell,
environme
ntal
impact,
dangerous
high caloric
Unreliable expenditure,
energy
unreliable
source,
availability
cannot
of parts,
chop
need more
during
than 1
night,
person to
expensive
operate
stationary
drawback
caloric
expenditur
e, takes a
long time,
incosistent
chopping
sizes
15
individual
all
group
Expensive/u
naffordable
need enough
hand power
from a
person to
work for a
long period
of time
item is not
available
locally, diesel
powered.
Tracie Dang
Elsie Fullerton
Jin Kyung-Kim
Greta Soos
3/15/15
sources: * Lopez, 2015 , ** Alibaba, 2015, *** Khope 2013
5.3.1 Comparison of Chopper Technologies
Figure 1. Chart comparing hours saved compared to machete chopping and cost of chopper.
Color represents environmental impact of each technology and line points to most ideal chopper.
5.4 Community Survey
This unofficial pre-workshop questionnaire for the “Benefits of Silage” Workshop is
what we developed so far and plan to ask the community before going into the workshop
activities. We did not put together a post-workshop questionnaire for this workshop and
questionnaires for the “Silage Production” Workshop yet.
Pre-Workshop Questionnaire for “Benefits of Silage” Workshop
Objective: Preliminary Needs Assessment of Silage Knowledge of Small-Scale Cattle Owners in
Sabana Grande
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Elsie Fullerton
Jin Kyung-Kim
Greta Soos
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*Units:
• 1 manzana (unit) = 1.72 acres (6,961 m2)
• 45 kg feed/per cow per day (in Sabana Grande)
• Adequate milk production:
o Normal milk production (average) = 12 liters/day
o Normal lactation duration = 310 days
Farm Information:
How many cows do you own? Heifers? Bulls? Calves?
What is your main use for owning cows (milk production, meat, cheese, income, etc)?
How much land do you own or rent for raising livestock and growing crops?
Milk Production:
How many liters of milk does each cow produce during the wet season? What is the lowest and
highest amount of liters of milk? Dry season? Lowest and highest amounts of liters of milk?
How many days does each cow lactate on average?
How much is consumed in your household? How much is sold? How much do you sell excess
milk?
Crop Residue Usage:
How often do you use crop residues for your cattle (how many times a week) during the wet
season? During the dry season? Do you use your own or do you purchase it?
How many lbs of crop residue does each cow need during the wet season? During the dry
season? How many lbs of crop residues are left in excess?
Market for Milk and Crop Residue:
What is the price of milk during the wet season? Dry season?
What is the price of crop residues during the wet season? Dry season?
Grazing and Land Management:
What crops do you grow for your household consumption? How much land in manzanas?
What crops/grasses do you grow for cattle feed? How much land in manzanas?
How much land do your cattle normally graze on in manzanas? How long do your cattle graze in
that same area? What season?
How often do you rotate your cattle to graze on a different area? How often within a year?
Knowledge of Silage Benefits:
Have you considered using silage as a feed resource for your cattle during the dry season? Do
you make or buy silage for your cattle? Do you know how to produce silage?
Do you know the nutritional benefits silage has for your cattle? Have you been to any workshops
that talked about the nutritional benefits silage has for you cattle? From Hilario? From the UC
Davis vet students?
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Greta Soos
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6. Recommandations:
6.1 Broad Recommendations
After D-Lab I, we will continue to work on this project in D-Lab II and travel to the
Sabana Grande community in Nicaragua during this summer. D-Lab II would be our design
period where we will build different types of chopper prototypes to explore the most suitable
design that will fit our chopper criteria to implement in the community. During this time, we will
also develop official questionnaires and workshop activities in order to outreach and understand
the community’s knowledge in silage benefits and production. After we officially build an ideal
chopper prototype and developed our workshop lesson plans, we will travel to Sabana Grande
during the summer for one month from mid June- mid July to interact with the community in
person and build our chopper there with the community workers. We also hope to collaborate
with the SOH vet students and Susan Kinne in Sabana Grande during this time in order to help
facilitate our project ideas from their expertise.
6.1.1 Chopper Recommendations
The team’s research has shown that there are several options for a best fit chopper. We
will officially be looking at diesel-powered, solar-powered, bike-powered and manual-powered
chopper designs and build these prototypes in D-Lab II. Since we have already carried out a costbenefit analysis for the materials and cost of each chopper that is available in the community, we
will use these specific materials to build our prototypes.
6.1.2 Educational Recommendations
As we already have an unofficial community pre-workshop questionnaire for the
“Benefits of Silage” Workshop, we plan to put together a post-workshop questionnaire and write
up specific workshop activities for this workshop to implement during the summer. In addition,
we plan to also put together pre and post-workshop questionnaires and develop hands-on
activities for the “Silage Production” Workshop as well for the community during the summer.
6.1.3 Holistic Management Recommendations
For holistic resource management to be successfully carried out in Sabana Grande
somebody would need to be educated fairly extensively in the practice. That person would need
to hold a certain amount of social sway and be committed to staying with the community and
overseeing the project.
Our group does believe that holistic land management could have a long-term role in the
community, but after looking at holistic resource management as a practice in general we have
determined that it belongs much further along in our planning. It won’t give us immediate results
in terms of cow health and dairy output, and it won’t generate the type of community buzz and
excitement towards solving the skinny cow problem that we are looking for at this stage in the
project.
Once the community is ready to begin exploring holistic resource management, however,
there are certain steps that will need to be carried out. Land surveys will need to be disseminated
and unhealthy areas of soil identified. A plan to correct or account for different familial
inputs/outputs will need to be agreed upon. A willingness to cooperate among different families,
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Elsie Fullerton
Jin Kyung-Kim
Greta Soos
3/15/15
and a certain level of commitment to the concept, will be absolutely vital for a project like this to
succeed in Sabana Grande.
Holistic management has a place in our long-term plan—but it isn’t something that
should be taken lightly or that one should dive into without proper understanding and training. If
the community chooses to proceed with this idea a good next step would be to begin networking
and looking for those who have already completed the holistic resource management class or
who, by some measure or other, possess the information necessary to get started on a project like
this.Alternatively, additional funding could be secured for the class to be taken first-hand by a
community member themselves.
6.2 Scalability
The exact outcome of this project has yet to be determined due to the extensive testing
that will be carried out in the next 10 weeks. Once a conclusion has been drawn it is entirely
possible that the solution will be transferable to other communities that struggle to nourish their
cattle both on a national and global level.
6.2.1 Chopper Scalability
Due to past NGO involvement in Sabana Grande, especially by Susan Kinne’s Grupo
Fenix, the local community tends to regard collaborative projects, which involve members from
outside the community, in a favorable and positive light. Community members are largely openminded and excited to experiment with new technologies (having had tremendous success
following the introduction of solar technologies by Grupo Fenix). Knowing this, we are able to
explore a more complete range of chopper designs--ranging from diesel to solar to humanpowered.
As such, we might expect more favorable outcomes and community buy-in in Sabana
Grande than in the typical rural community. Some communities, for instance, may experience a
more difficult time leaving behind traditional practices in favor of unknown new technologies
than we anticipate from Sabana Grande residents.
The community resources that are available in Sabana Grande are a major contributing
factor in terms of design feasibility and maintenance. Community access will differ among
communities and so, when looking forward to expand this project, this will need to be
considered.
Further, the effectiveness of the design itself will largely be determined throughout the
course of time as it is used regularly and the community has a chance to provide feedback. This
period of practical use will allow us to isolate issues before seeking to scale-up the project.
A successful project in Sabana Grande will go a long way towards making this project
successful elsewhere, as proof that this is a functional solution will be our project’s biggest
advocate.
6.2.2 Workshop Scalability
We anticipate that the workshop will be less transferable between communities than will
a technology such as the chopper. However, community surveys will be designed to gather
appropriate information from a range of different cultures, environments, etc. With the data
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Elsie Fullerton
Jin Kyung-Kim
Greta Soos
3/15/15
provided from these surveys broad concepts and workshop lessons may be individualized and
made appropriate across a variety of physical and social circumstances.
The workshops that we plan specifically in conjunction with our project, however, will be
very community centric and tailored against that which we know about Sabana Grande
specifically from our research, interviews, and questionnaires.
6.2.3 Holistic Management Scalability
Holistic management is not a concept that we are pioneering, but rather a well-researched
practice that we recommend might be employed in a long-term plan to solve the problem of
malnourished cattle in Sabana Grande. Holistic management, in practice, is specific and goal
oriented and varies drastically from one environment to another. As such, it is not something that
we would presently be seeking to scale up in other communities, though it might become routine
to advise communities of its existence and general principles.
7. Project Reflection
With conflicting schedules among our team-members, a 2 hour time difference between
the US and Nicaragua, and an inability to communicate with our client via e-mail we were, at the
beginning of the quarter, unsure of how we would proceed and overcome these challenges.
Through communication with each other, a willingness to compromise, and a commitment to
both the project and our client, we were able to establish a weekly regimen for phone calls-something that we are convinced the project could not have succeeded without.
Beyond our ability to make calls, however, by far the most important component was our
client himself. We have had the privilege of working with a very committed and communicative
client. Without Hilario’s dedication we would have had a far more difficult time collecting and
synthesizing the information needed to inform our analyses and decision making frameworks.
Even so, it was a true learning experience to realize all of the little questions that must be asked
in order to paint a clear picture of a community. It was time consuming and could sometimes be
frustrating when we felt that half an hour worth of questioning could be answered by five
minutes on the ground, in the community itself. It was worthwhile, however, to hear Hilario’s
thoughts and ideas about his community, rather than for us to come in as outsiders and draw our
own conclusions.
By being forced to ask Hilario questions which addressed the various minutiae of the
community we were simultaneously forced to check our assumptions and realize how little we
did know about the community. We imagine that had we first spent time in the community,
without this primer, we may have been inclined to draw our own conclusions without ever asking
some of the questions that needed to be asked.
At the beginning of this process we called Hilario with only our four team-members
present, hoping that our elementary Spanish abilities would be enough to allow us to
communicate with him, but they weren’t. After only one call with Jorge’s help as a translator we
realized how vital a clear line of communication would be to this process. With Jorge’s
willingness to gamely serve as a translator thereafter our team truly learned to appreciate the
value conferred by ease of communication with our client. We realize how invaluable this has
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Elsie Fullerton
Jin Kyung-Kim
Greta Soos
3/15/15
been to the successes we have experienced with this project so far. Communication with Hilario
has, truly, been the key to this entire process.
Writing individual sector papers helped us each become a mini-expert in a particular area
of the project. This created a platform for dynamic discussions amongst ourselves and for ideas
that were more rich and creative as we bounced different concepts, rooted in our different
‘specialties,’ against each other.
Towards the end of this quarter, our team learned that the undergraduate members (so
far) have been awarded the PATA undergraduate student grant by the Blum Center for
Developing Economies to travel to Nicaragua this summer and to implement the ideas that we
have been working towards. This really boosted the excitement of the team, and it’s awesome
knowing that we will get to stay with this project and see it through to a tangible outcome.
8. References
“Climate.” Climate. ViaNica, n.d. Web. 13 Feb. 2015.
Guevara-Stone, Laurie. "Solar Innovation Gives Nicaraguan Community a Brighter Future."
GreenBiz. N.p., n.d. Web.
Guevara-Stone, Laurie. "Women's Empowerment through Renewable Energy: A Case Study of
Nicaragua." Women's Empowerment through Renewable Energy: A Case Study in
Nicaragua (n.d.): n. pag. Solar Energy International. Web.
“How much milk do cows give?” Dairy Moos. http://www.dairymoos.com/how-much-milk-docows-give/. 15 February 2015.
“How to Fight Desertification and Reverse Climate Change.” Allan Savory: TED Talk, n.d.
Web. 15 Feb. 2015.
Khope, P. B., and J. P. Modak. "Development And Performance Evaluation Of A Human
Powered Flywheel Motor Operated Forge Cutter."International Journal of Scientific &
Technology Research 2.3 (2013): 146-49. Web. 15 Feb. 2015.
Lopez, Hilario. (26 Jan. 2, 9, 23 Feb. 2, 11 March. 2015). Telephone interviews.
Randolph, T. F., et al. "Role of livestock in human nutrition and health for poverty reduction in
developing countries." Journal of animal science 85.11 (2007): 2788-2800.
Reyes, Y. “Familias reciben Bono Productivo Alimentario en San Isidro de Bolas.” El 19. El 19,
17 May 2014. http://www.el19digital.com/articulos/ver/titulo:18495-familias-recibenbono-productivo-alimentario-en-san-isidro-de-bolas. 15 February 2015.
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Elsie Fullerton
Jin Kyung-Kim
Greta Soos
3/15/15
Savory, Allan. “The Savory Grazing Method or Holistic Resource Management.” Rangelands
5.4(1983): 155-59. JSTOR. Web. 15 Feb. 2015.
Wheeler, B., “Guidelines for Feeding Dairy Cows.” FAO. September 2003. http://www.fao.org/
prods/gap/database/gap/files/
1334_GUIDELINES_FOR_FEEDING_DAIRY_COWS.HTM. 15 February 2015.
White, S. L., et al. "Milk production and economic measures in confinement or pasture systems
using seasonally calved Holstein and Jersey cows." Journal of dairy science 85.1 (2002):
95-104.
9. Appendices
Appendix 1:
We owe our thanks to the following mentors and contributors for their willingness to collaborate,
brainstorm, and provide us with resources and support throughout the process thus far. We look
forward to continuing this process with these folks by our side!
Contributors
Hilario Lopez, Vet Promoter and
Farm Leader
Our main client who we had weekly interviews and gave
great info about Sabana Grande
Students for One Health (SOH) Vet Health of community’s cattle and trip logistics
Students
IAD Graduate Students
Provided silage production rates and benefits for
community
Susan Kinne, Community Leader
in Sabana Grande
Contact for advice on solar panels, a supporter of our
project
Mentors
Patricia Andrade
Main project mentor
Jorge Espinoza
Served as translator between English and Spanish,
provided general support and ideas
Appendix 2:
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Elsie Fullerton
Jin Kyung-Kim
Greta Soos
3/15/15
This is an image of Hilario Lopez chopping crop residue by hand with a machete in order to
make silage.
Appendix 3:
An overview of the process of producing silage.
fao.org
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