Livestock and environment
Group report on the ILRI@40 workshop
Addis Ababa, 7 November 2014

Livestock and Environment
Challenges
• Sustainable food production but need broader
definition of efficiency
• Resource scarcity will bite hard and
competition will increase
• Climate change will have major impact on
production environments and ecologies
• Incentives are necessary for behaviour change
(response options)

L&E vision
• compelling body of evidence on mitigation
and adaptation interventions
– Clear understanding of incentives and for whom
• decision support for adaptation and resilience
investments
• decision support for sustainable
intensification interventions
• “complex” systems analysis that goes beyond
climate!!

L&E Key Research Questions
• GHG/ efficiency gap: how close or shift?
– Need broad definition of efficiency that includes
land and water
• Integrated analysis that combines:
– Multiple ecosystem services
– Geographic and (e.g.) value chain approaches for
better targeting
– Scenarios
– Recognizes tipping points and identifies thresholds

L&E research Questions
• Climate change adaptation (with other
groups.. E.g. genomics)
• Livestock and biodiversity complementarities
• Use “big” data wisely to combine system
specificity with the pressure to scale up robust
interventions

Assumptions
• Livestock will always be with us
• Livestock produce environmental goods
• Livestock in “marginal” systems are also
productive
• Complexity and dynamism are inevitable and
increasing
• Agricultural transformation ongoing but how
will donors respond with respect to
smallholder issue