Research strategy
The paper by Romney et al. lays out the overall strategy for the research project.
It was concluded that the following studies were needed:
- An on-station experiment to plan and define the nature of the concentrate feeding intervention by quantifying the benefits of shifting all the feeding to a period during early lactation.
- A cross-sectional, questionnaire survey to collect initial data on cow milk yields in smallholder farms.
- A longitudinal field study with 'treatment' and 'control' farmers to evaluate the effect of reallocation of concentrates.
- A follow-up, cross-sectional, questionnaire survey 12 months later to see how any improvements made during the previous year were being maintained.
The longitudinal study did not perform precisely as anticipated and further consultations were
required with farmers to obtain additional retrospective information.
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