Major constraint to animal production in the tropics is the deficiency of year-round supply of feed, in quantity and quality, in particular during the dry season. And one of the strategies to overcome this problem is to introduce improved pastures based on legumes that are well-adapted to the edaphic and climatic conditions prevailing in the tropics.
In the context of the collaborative research program on the "Improvement of Tropical Pastures" between TARC and CIAT, the author had the opportunity to carry out experiments showing that grass-legume pastures offer a great potential in animal production. Cattle grazing on grass-legume mixture usually select grass species although legume intake tends to increase during the dry season, presumably due to seasonal changes in legume quality. Such intake enables to minimize the weight loss observed in the dry season while increasing animal productivity as a whole. This is one of the important attributes of legumes.
However, the utilization of local feed resources available is also important and relevant from the economic and ecological points of view, and improved pastures should be used strategically to provide supplemental feed during the critical stage of animal nutrition. Therefore, the development of a production system aiming at integrating the utilization of local feed resources and imprbved pastures is essential if animal production is to be increased in the tropics.