Melkamu Bezabih Derseh

Melkamu Bezabih holds a PhD in Animal Nutrition from Wageningen University, an MSc from Bonn University, and a BSc from Addis Ababa University. He is currently a scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Addis Ababa. His research focuses on developing alternative feed and nutrition solutions for smallholder farmers in developing countries.

His specific research interest lies in developing and promoting optimized forage-based livestock diets by systematically integrating high-quality, context-specific forages into mixed farming systems. His other research areas include validating and promoting dual-purpose crops to meet both feed and food demands, improving the nutritive quality of fibrous crop residues through alternative treatment methods, and exploring non-conventional feeds to reduce feeding costs.

Currently, he is involved in a collaborative project to develop a user-friendly diet optimization tool that helps smallholder farmers reduce feeding costs, enhance livestock productivity, and lower greenhouse gas emissions. As part of this initiative, he is working on developing Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS) calibration models using low-cost mobile NIRS sensors to assess the nutritive quality of local feed resources for optimized diet formulations.

Before joining ILRI, he was a lecturer at Hawassa University, where he taught graduate and undergraduate courses in animal nutrition and dairy production. He maintains strong ties with the academic community, supervising several PhD and MSc students and actively engaging in capacity-building training programs.