Rangeland Fodder Flow Planner

The Fodder Flow Planner is a simple tool designed to aid rangeland users in the dry lands of southern Africa to annually set realistic livestock and game numbers. The tool is specifically designed for grazing animals, but also provides stocking rate statistics for the browsing portions of browsers and mixed feeder animals.

In the App the user specify the size of the area available to the animals, the estimated standing biomass of herbaceous plants (Dry Matter) and the number of livestock and game animals using the area. The output is a graph forecasting the fodder depletion rate over the dry season. A shortfall before the end of the dry season serves as an early warning that animals are likely to exceed the fodder supply, while a good overlap of forecasted fodder availability and the expected start of the new growing season points at sufficient or surplus fodder available.