A field investigation of forage composition, distribution and supply pattern in cattle farm of East Java and West Java

Forage plays an important role to the development of ruminant farming as it sources of main feed. This research survey was conducted to investigate the current agricultural practice of feed production system in small, medium and big scale of farmers’ community or enterprise and forage value chain. This research survey was carried out in 3 months from August – October 2018. Survey location were conducted in two provinces. The location was carried out in West Java and East Java as following: 1) West Java Province: Dairy farm in Pangalengan, Lembang – Bandung Regency and Cibungbulang-Bogor Regency; Cattle in Jonggol - Bogor Regency; 2) East Java Province: Dairy farm in Malang Regency; Cattle in Tuban Regency. The selected locations for the survey are based on the high density of population of dairy and beef cattle. Descriptive statistics are used to describe the basic features of the data in this study. Farmers generally provide sufficient quantities of feed for ruminants in accordance with the needs of the livestock. The type of forage depends on the type of livestock and the availability of forage around the farm location. In large scale farms, farmers will buy forage during a large number of planting seasons and then processed and stored it in the form of silage. While for small scale farmers, forage purchases are made based on daily needs. These research concluded that forage type and distribution depend on forage availability on farm and supplier level.