Dry season feeding strategies and winter forage production by communal area sheep farmers of the Eastern Cape province in South Africa

The potential of using winter forages as a cheap, high-quality winter supplement has been investigated at an experimental level with positive results. There is no information on the extent, practices, and challenges of winter forage production by communal farmers in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. In this study, we assess farmers' knowledge and perceptions of winter forage production and the challenges that come with it, as well as the perceived benefits of communal sheep production. A total of 32 sheep farmers involved in winter forage cultivation were interviewed using a structured questionnaire in Swartwater village. Descriptive statistics were generated using SPSS 20 and categorical variables were evaluated using frequencies. Lambing was reported to be prevalent in June (36%), and poor nutrition was believed to be responsible for the high lamb mortality (42%). All respondents were supplementing mainly with maize grain (26%) and planted forages (26%). Oats (52%), radish (18%), and barley (14%) were the most planted forage species. Improved wool quality (22%) and ewe body condition (21%) were some of the benefits associated with winter forage production. For a wider adoption of forage production, the reported challenges of moisture stress (57%) and poor government support (19%) need to be addressed, and furthermore, farmer training and information sharing would speed up the process. In order to promote winter forage cultivation and integrate it into communal area farming systems, we propose further studies on proper planting guidelines to generate information to support context-specific production strategies.