Draught animal power is vitally important to millions of families in developing countries: as well as having a critical role in the crop-production cycle, draught animals are a source of wealth and status, a means of transport and source of power, and a provider of meat, milk, manure and hides to the rural community. Of the approximately 10 million cattle and 3 million buffaloes in Indonesia, some 45-66% are used for work. However, although increasing demands have been made on working animals, various factors have caused their numbers to decrease in some areas. There is an urgent need to improve the efficiency of draught animal production systems where possible, in terms of their total contribution to rural families and to the economy.

In this project, scientists will collate and analyse Indonesian information on draught animals, together with data obtained from a previous ACIAR project (8546: 'Multidisciplinary Studies of draught animal power systems in Southeast Asia'). The information will be used to formulate and evaluate practical and economical feeding and management packages to make most efficient use of locally available resources. The likely economic impact of the proposed technology will be assessed in production systems in two villages at Grati (East Java) and in two transmigration sites in South Sumatra, and a Draught Animal Manual aimed at extension workers, summarising the significant findings of projects 8546 and 8908, will be produced.

Scientists from the commissioned organisationthe Graduate School of Tropical Veterinary Science and Agriculture at James Cook Universitywill collaborate with colleagues at CSIRO's Davies Laboratory, also in Townsville, and at Balai Penelitian Ternak (BPT) in Bogor, Indonesia. Collectively, the scientists have many years research experience in the tropics, and this, together with infrastructures developed in the course of project 8546, should ensure that the objectives of the proposed program are achieved.

Research will be concentrated at Sub-BPT (Grati), where traction studies can be done using both Ongole and Bali cattle. Neither of these important draught animal breeds has been studied to any extent, and the latter is the breed mostly distributed by the government to transmigration areas.

Limited experiments on nutrition, physiology and reproduction will be done at James Cook University and CSIRO in Townsville and at Grati. Information from these experiments, together with data obtained in project 8546 and from existing information in Indonesia, will be used to develop draught animal feeding and management packages that will broaden options available to the farmer. These packages will be evaluated in transmigration areas under the supervision of BPT scientists.

Results of the project will be well publicised in ACIAR's DA Project Bulletin (produced at James Cook University and translated into Indonesian by BPT), in research and review papers prepared for conferences and scientific journals, and in the Draught Animal Manual.

Indonesia, and developing-country neighbours indirectly, will benefit from improvement of draught animal production systems and enhanced animal production technology. The project should result in the optimisation of draught animal production systems specifically through optimisation of feeding and management strategies. The impact of this is expected to be on labour input and on productivity, by improving calving rate. The benefit to farmers in transmigration areas will be in the increased capacity of the farmer to utilise cropping land that is currently under-utilised. Strengthening of human relations and research infrastructures will also benefit Australia and Indonesia, and, in due course, other countries in the region.

The project is highly relevant to animal production in the Australian tropics. In particular, Australia could benefit from learning more about the utilisation of low-quality forages by cattle and about buffalo nutrition (from the point of view of feeding buffaloes in the Northern Territory for export meat production).