Platform for African – European Partnership in Agricultural Research for Development

Friday, August 22, 2014

African Livestock Futures: Realizing the potential of livestock for food security, poverty reduction and the environment in Sub-Saharan Africa

Herrero, M., Havlik, P., McIntire, J., Palazzo, A. et Valin, H. 
June 2014. Office of the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Food Security and Nutrition and the United Nations System Influenza Coordination (UNSIC), Geneva, Switzerland, 118 p.
Herrero, M., Havlik, P., McIntire, J., Palazzo, A. et Valin, H. juin 2014. Bureau du Représentant spécial du Secrétaire général des Nations Unies pour la sécurité alimentaire et la nutrition et Coordination du Système des Nations Unies pour la grippe aviaire (UNSIC), Genève, Suisse, 118 p.

Key highlights from the study are:
  1. Under all scenarios, smallholders, with their mixed crop and livestock farming systems, will continue to be the main producers of ruminant (cattle, goat and sheep) products until 2050. For monogastrics (such as poultry and pigs), most of the expansion will be through industrial production systems.
  2. Policies that encourage healthy food consumption patterns, the sustainable intensification of all livestock production systems and selective promotion of monogastric livestock production, could result in increased environmental efficiency of livestock systems in sub-Saharan Africa. This can be done in ways that protect production in pastoral communities, and by smallholder farmers. 
  3. Sustainable intensification of livestock production will yield significant benefits for food security, incomes, trade, smallholder competitiveness and ecosystems services. These benefits need to be widely appreciated: at the present time farmers face major challenges when attempting to increase their investments in livestock production especially when the sector’s contribution to sustainable development and economic growth is not appreciated.
  4. The required investments include increased provision of veterinary services, inputs, institutional support, processing and markets. These are all essential if current livestock production systems are to evolve into viable commercial operations.
David Nabarro, Special Representative of the UN Secretary General on Food Security and Nutrition who directed the development and implementation of the study, states that 
“As people’s incomes increase, their demand for (and access to) livestock products tends to increase as well.” He believes that “the degree to which people have predictable access to safe livestock products depends on the extent to which local markets responds to increasing demand and to which gaps in production can be met through imports from elsewhere”.
“The results of this research set the scene for more intensive work on options for expanding livestock production in Africa”, said David Nabarro. Follow-up work will explore how the dynamics of livestock markets will evolve in Africa and how changes in habitats will impact on the likelihood that new diseases will emerge and threaten the health of both animal and, if they are transmissible, human populations providing a detailed map for disease emergence hotspots under the different livestock scenarios.
This study was prepared by a core research team from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) under the stewardship of the Office of the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Food Security and Nutrition and UN System Influenza Coordination (UNSIC).

The conduct of the study was made possible through financial support provided by the US Agency for International Development (USAID). The scenarios used in the study were developed and quantified as part of the European Union (EU) funded project “An integration of mitigation and adaptation options for sustainable livestock production under climate change”.
*** AnimalChange regional workshop, 30-31 October 2014 in Budapest

Online (PDF) versions of the full Report, Executive Summary and Policy Brief available below:

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