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