improving environmental sustainability of livestock systems in the developing world
DESCRIPTION
Presented by Jimmy Smith at the Agri4D annual conference on agricultural research for development, Uppsala, Sweden, 25−26 September 2013TRANSCRIPT
Improving environmental sustainability of livestock systems in the developing worldAgri4D annual conference on agricultural research for development
Uppsala, Sweden, 25−26 September 2013
Jimmy Smith, ILRI Director General
Key messages
• Smallholder livestock systems can help us meetthe Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), including those related to:– Reducing environmental harms– Exploiting environmental opportunities
• Different trajectories of livestock systems in developing countries are opportunities for:- Improving natural resource use efficiency- Restoring value to grasslands- Reducing harmful livestock waste
Livestock and the sustainable development goals
Sustainable Development Goals
01 End poverty
02 Empower girls and women and achieve gender equity
03 Provide quality education and lifelong learning
04 Ensure healthy lives
05 Ensure food security and good nutrition
06 Achieve universal access to water and sanitation
07 Secure sustainable energy
08 Create jobs, sustainable livelihoods and equitable growth
09 Manage natural resource assets sustainably
10 Ensure good governance and effective institutions
11 Ensure stable and peaceful societies
12 Create a global enabling environment & catalyze long term finance
Livestock and the Sustainable Development Goals
01 End poverty
02 Empower girls and women and achieve gender equity
03 Provide quality education and lifelong learning
04 Ensure healthy lives
05 Ensure food security and good nutrition
06 Achieve universal access to water and sanitation []
07 Secure sustainable energy []
08 Create jobs, sustainable livelihoods and equitable growth
09 Manage natural resource assets sustainably
10 Ensure good governance and effective institutions
11 Ensure stable and peaceful societies
12 Create a global enabling environment & catalyze long term finance
Reduce poverty with livestock: SDG01
• 1 billion people rely on livestock for their livelihoods• Livestock give poor households reliable cash income• Livestock demand is highest in developing countries
- Over 50% increase in demand for milk, meat, eggsin the next three decades in developing countries
Empower women with livestock: SDG02
• Women undertake up to 70% of agricultural workin many parts of the world
• Almost two-thirds of the world’s 1 billionpoor livestock keepers are rural women
• In the Gambia:52% of sheep owners,67% of goat owners, are women
• In Chiapas, Mexico:sheep husbandry is women’s business
• In Afghanistan:traditional poultry raising is carried out entirely by women
Ensure healthy lives with livestock: SDG04
• Animal-source foods (meat, milk, eggs)present food safety risks
• 60% of human infectious diseases and 75%of other emerging diseases (e.g., bird flu),are ‘zoonotic’ (come from animals)
• ‘Top 13 zoonoses each year kill 2.2 million ′people and make 2.4 billion people ill
• We need better disease surveillance, animal husbandry and marketing; risk-rather than rule-based health controls; pro-poor policies.
Ensure food/nutrition security with livestock: SDG05
• Milk, meat, eggs provide essentialprotein, energy, micronutrients
• Consumption of even small amounts of animal-source foods:- combats under-nutrition- improves cognitive development- increases physical growth
• Developing countries leadin global food production- 500 million smallholders support
more than 2 billion people- smallholder crop-livestock systems
produce about 50% of global foodConway 2012; Herrero et al. in press
Enable sustainable livelihoods with livestock: SDG06
• Livestock make cropping possible,and sustain it over the longer term
• Smallholder producers are competitive:More than 85% of Kenyan milk isproduced by 1 million smallholders
• Livestock provide means for women toearn incomes, for households to save andbuild assets, for farmers to plough their land
Manage natural resources with livestock: SDG07
• Livestock are a main user of land and source of GHGs
• Importance of manure: 23% of nitrogen forcrop production comes from manure
• Crop residues contribute up to 70% of the dietsof ruminant animals in developing countries
• Grass still makes up 50% of all the biomassconsumed by the world’s livestock
• We can improve livestock efficienciesin poor countries without movingto industrial grain-fed systems
Livestock and the environment
Smallholder livestock keepers and the environment
Livestock as CAUSE?
Livestock asSOLUTION?
Livestock asVICTIM?
Global greenhouse gas efficiencyper kilogram of animal protein produced
Large livestock production inefficienciesin the developing world present an opportunity
Herrero et al PNAS (in press)
Growth scenarios for the livestock sector
Strong growth Fragile growth High growthwith externalities
Waste to worth
Different trajectories demanddifferent environmental solutions
Strong growth
Fragile growth
High growth
Restoring value to grassland
Closing the efficiency gap
Closing the efficiency gap
Production efficiency – developed countries
Source: Capper et al., 2009
Feed, breed, health =
4 fold milk increase
Possible GHG opportunities
• Develop capacity for quantifyingGHG emissions from agricultural sources
• Develop ILRI into a ‘competence centre‘for GHG measurements in Africa
• Build network of GHG labs across Africa and elsewhere to allow developing countriesto obtain country-specific informationabout their agricultural GHG emissions
• Identify pro-poor mitigation options for smallholder agriculture in the developing world
Developing countries can mitigate GHG emissions without moving to industrial grain-fed systems:
e.g., through improved efficiencies(e.g., better feeds and feeding systems)
Feed opportunities
Water opportunities
Feed, water and livestock
management; integrated crop-
livestock systems
Restoring value to grasslands
Potential carbon sequestration by 2040
Source: adapted from:
Thornton and Herrero, PNAS (2010)
Potential carbon sequestration (Tg C/yr) in global rangelands by grazing severity and continent
Light Moderate Strong Extreme Total
Africa
Australia/
Pacific
Eurasia
North
America
South
America
Total
1.9
4.5
0.8
0
6.1
13.3
8.6
-0.1
3.2
1.6
11.3
24.4
6.1
0.0
0.6
0.7
7.4
0.1
0.3
0.4
16.7
4.4
4.3
2.2
18.1
45.7
Moderate grazingimproves carbon storage
Source: Conant and Paustian 2002
Pay livestock keepers for wildlife conservation
Payments for wildlife conservation can provide pastoral communitieswith income to pay for livestock vaccines, food and school fees
Pay livestock keepers for environmental services
Payments for environmental services may help developing countries ‘green’ their livestock sectors through better climate regulation,
watershed management and biodiversity conservation
Waste to worth
Manure problems/management
Manure problems• Livestock disconnected from land in intensive systems• Concentrated livestock produces local nutrient overloads• Handling manure is difficult• Anaerobic digestion can have trade-offs
Manure management• Technical solutions are available but need to be tailored• Better integration of livestock-crop farming• Improved composting• Recovering nutrients and other valuables• Biogas production (fermentation)• Manure refinery (bio-enzymes)
Opportunities for manure management
• Manage manure and nutrient cycling to maximizethe use of nutrients and capture of methane
• Make and support policy and institutional changesthat promote responsible waste management
• Improve breeds to reduce GHG emissions from manure
Source: Butterbach-Bahl, 2012
Key messages
• Smallholder livestock systems can help us meetthe Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), including those related to:– Reducing environmental harms– Exploiting environmental opportunities
• Different trajectories of livestock systems in developing countries are opportunities for:- Improving natural resource use efficiency- Restoring value to grasslands- Reducing harmful livestock waste
Conclusions
Opportunitiesto address
environmental issuesthrough research
livestock developmentare huge − and as yet
largely untapped