Draught animal power has great importance for millions of families in developing countries. It provides 30% of the agricultural power in Asia, which uses about 60% of the world's supply of such power. Improving its role through research has recently aroused much interest. ACIAR sponsored a workshop at Townsville in July 1985 in response to numerous requests from developing countries for Australian participation in collaborative studies of draught power for production.

These projects grew out of the recommendations of that workshop, and represent a co-ordinated multidisciplinary study of draught animal systems, designed to assess the contribution of draught animal power within important farming systems and to identify methods of increasing productivity and farmer benefits from draught animal enterprises. They will concentrate on Southeast Asia - initially on Indonesia, where some 45-60% of the 6.8 million cattle and 2.4 million buffaloes are used for work. Specific sites will be selected from three priority study areas: the northern part of Java (a low-altitude highly populated area, with paired animals normally used for cultivation); South Sulawesi (transmigration areas, using horses as well as buffalo); and Timor (dry area, cultivation by puddling with large numbers of cattle and buffalo).

Research will cover three fields - draught animal systems, socioeconomics, and nutrition and physiology. Phase II (on reproduction and health control) may follow, but details will depend on constraints defined in Phase 1.

The draught animal systems program will begin with a study of existing data, followed by a survey to identify and characterise important systems and target groups of farmers. This will assist in establishing priorities and also suitable sites. Joint research with other sections of the project at selected sites will define biological constraints and research needs and, later, will test ideas for improvement of the draught animal power enterprise through farm trials and demonstrations. Regular communication and annual workshops will co-ordinate the work of all sections of the projects.

Research in the socioeconomics program will seek to understand, describe and quantify the economic functions associated with the possession and use of draught animals in agricultural areas of Indonesia. This may involve accounting for management skills in, say, lending or renting out a beast as well as making direct use of its draught, milk, meat, and reproductive capacities. The team will identify and measure not only the demand and supply trends for draught animal power (and the possibility of substituting human labour and machine power) but also the biological and economic constraints on changes in its use and in farming systems based on it. They will take into account questions of associated farmer status. The research will utilise economic models of farming activity, which can also be used to test and evaluate changes proposed by scientists concentrating on the biological and physiological aspects of the project.

The nutrition and physiology program has two broad goals: to study in cattle and buffalo the effects of work loads (and work-physiology interactions) on feed intake, digestion and utilisation of absorbed and body-reserve nutrients by the whole body and muscle tissue; and to formulate practical feeding standards for draught animals in different physiological conditions. One priority is to develop a standard method of measuring work load and the animal response to it. More specific goals will relate to specific study sites in Indonesia. The scientists will evaluate the seasonal quality and quantity of feed resources and measure productivity of draught animal enterprises in terms of growth, work and production. Having identified any constraints to increasing the farmers' welfare and production efficiency, they will develop possible solutions on research stations and test these on farms.

All three research components will be studied in both Australia and Indonesia. Results will help to direct future biological and economic research and provide guidance for policy-makers who control credit and other infrastructural support for livestock. All Southeast Asian countries that depend on large ruminants should benefit from application of the results.