<![CDATA[Smallholder cattle farming in Indonesia continues to face several challenges, including limited feed availability during the dry season, underutilization of agricultural residues as alternative feed resources, and inadequate farm financial management. These constraints contribute to low livestock productivity, high production costs, and suboptimal market value of cattle. This community service program aimed to enhance farmers' capacity through training and mentoring on silage and ammoniation feed processing, integrated with financial management practices to improve livestock productivity and market value. The program adopted a Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) approach consisting of needs assessment, socialization, training, demonstrations, hands-on practice (learning by doing), mentoring, monitoring, and evaluation. Program effectiveness was evaluated using pre-tests, post-tests, skill observations, and implementation monitoring. The results demonstrated significant improvements in farmers' knowledge and practical skills regarding silage production and ammoniation technology utilizing locally available feed resources. Participants also improved their competencies in bookkeeping, cash flow recording, and simple farm profit analysis. The adoption of feed preservation technologies enabled farmers to utilize forage and agricultural residues more efficiently, ensuring year-round feed availability while reducing feed costs. Furthermore, financial management training encouraged better farm administration and more informed business decision-making. This program developed an integrated community empowerment model that combines feed technology innovation with financial literacy to simultaneously improve biological productivity and economic performance of smallholder cattle farming. The proposed model has strong potential for replication in other livestock farmer groups to support sustainable livestock development.]]>
Copyrights © 2026
