Transforming the global food systems:
challenges and opportunities
Jimmy Smith, Director General
International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)
ACIAR-CGIAR discussions
Canberra
30 November 2018

A food systems transformation agenda
Food and nutrition
security
Livelihoods and
economic growth
Human health
Environmental
health
CGIAR global challenges
ACIAR goals

Food and Nutritional Security

Nutritional divides among 7.5 billion people today
hungry people
stunted children
insufficient
nutrients
overweight/obese
balanced diets
Healthcare for
obesity economic
cost: $2 trillion
11% of GNP lost
annually in Africa
and Asia from
poor nutrition
Only just over
one third well fed
and nourished
Meat consumption average 2018
OECD = 69 kg/capita
Africa = 10 kg/capita

Protein supply (g/capita/day) from animal foods
2013
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Africa N.America S.America Asia Europe Australia
Meat Eggs Milk Fish
Recommended daily protein

Animal-source foods are critical
for both physical and cognitive growth
• Globally, 151 million young children are stunted
• Milk, meat and eggs provide key nutrients (vitamins A, B12,
choline, iron, zinc) in highly bioavailable forms for humans
• Eggs and animal milk—among ‘nature’s first foods’—are
especially critical for addressing nutrient deficiencies in
undernourished people
• New evidence from Ecuador shows that eating just one egg a day
can reduce stunting (by 47%) among in 6–9 month-old babies
• There is growing evidence that it is impossible for babies to achieve
adequate nutrition in the first 1000 days of life without access to
animal-source foods
Animal-source foods are critical for human health,
especially for new mothers and young children

Livestock research to transform
food and nutritional security
• Increasing the productivity of livestock in low-income countries—e.g., through
better feeds, breeds and health—to greatly augment food supplies.
• Improving nutrition as well as food for poor people through livestock-derived
foods.
• Promoting ‘nutrition-sensitive livestock interventions’ to increase the availability,
affordability, access and use of animal-source foods.
• A new ILRI study recommends improving access to milk, meat and eggs for new
mothers and children in their first 1000 days of life.

Integrating crop and livestock for improved food security and
livelihoods in rural Zimbabwe (AUS$ 4.4M; 2012–2017)
Better integration of crop and livestock production; improved market functioning benefitted 170,000
farmers through:
- increased agricultural production
- improved food security
- increased incomes
- enhanced resilience of vulnerable communities

Livelihoods and Economic Growth

Livestock build global, national and household economies
• The global livestock sector on average makes up 40% of
agricultural gross domestic product (GDP); and 15–80%
in developing countries
• Most livestock products in developing countries are sold
‘informally’ and locally, with their production, processing
and sale creating many jobs all along the value chain
• Of the over half a billion small holder mixed crop-
livestock farmers in the world, two-thirds are rural
women
o Farms less than 20ha supply about 70% of the livestock and
cereal products in developing countries

Various sources: BMGF, FAO, ILRI
Smallholders still dominate
livestock production in many countries
Region
(definition of
‘smallholder’)
% production by smallholder livestock farms
Beef Chicken
meat
Sheep/goat
meat
Milk Pork Eggs
East Africa 60-90
(≤ 6 milking
animals)
Bangladesh
(< 3ha land)
65 77 78 65 96 77
India
(< 2ha land)
75 92 92 69 most 71
Vietnam
(small scale)
90 65 80 70
Philippines
(backyard)
85 41 99 44 64 25

Demand for livestock commodities in developing economies is
growing fast – and will be met—the question is how
Scenario #1
Meeting livestock demand by
importing livestock products
Scenario #2
Meeting livestock demand by
importing livestock industrial production know-how
Scenario #3
Meeting livestock demand by
transforming smallholder livestock systems
Scenario #4
Meeting livestock demand by
new sources of protein and nutrients ‘alt’ foods

Livestock research to transform
livelihoods and promote economic growth
• Evidence to guide livestock investment and related policy decisions in and for developing countries.
Launched in 2016, the Ethiopia Livestock Master Plan:
o Has been the basis for a new World Bank loan of USD170 million, USD75 million in donor-funded projects
and USD200 million in private sector investments
o Higher productivity and income levels resulting from these investment interventions are projected to lift
more than 2.3 million of Ethiopia’s 11 million livestock keeping households out of poverty
• Integrated strategies to improve the performance of smallholder livestock value chains.
• Gender-equitable livestock options for better lives of women and men alike.
o 25 dairy enterprises in India’s Uttarakhand benefit >5,000 women farmers, increasing their milk supplies by
300%.
o Women in 4 African countries have access to superior chicken breeds developed by ILRI.
o New: gender objective in SafePORK – to reduce the barriers and improve opportunities for women to
benefit from safe pork
o Small research on understanding gender issues around vaccine use in Vietnam

Human Health

Big challenges at the intersection of human and animal
health
Food borne diseases (many associated with animal-source foods) each year:
• 600 million people are sickened
• 420,000 people, mostly children die
• US95M economic loss for low- and middle-income countries
Zoonoses:
• 13 zoonoses sicken 2.4 billion people, kill 2.2 million people and affect more than 1 in 7 livestock
each year
Pandemic risk:
• ‘Spanish flu’ of the early 20th century, caused 50 to 100 million deaths
• Not ‘if’ but ‘when’
Anti-Microbial Resistance:
• 10 million deaths a year by 2050?
• The role of livestock?

• Reducing disease risks and improving food
safety in smallholder pig value chains in
Vietnam AUS$2M 2012 to 2017:
• Over 100 students trained, > 10 peer
reviewed papers; high level policy
engagement
• Safe Pork-Market Based Approaches to
Improving the Safety of Pork in Vietnam
AUS$2M, 2017 to 2022:
• New tools; private sector partnership
• Innovations to reduce contamination
• Behavior ‘nudges’
• Australian volunteer recruited
• Other ACIAR and German-funded projects on
food safety in Vietnam:
• Workshops, capacity development,
networking: 50 participants from 8 countries
in South-, SE Asia and East Africa
• New work on gender; and on parasitic
diseases
Food safety: focus on SE Asia

Big opportunities exist to reduce the threat of pandemic disease
events via livestock interventions
• Better animal disease surveillance, ‘One-Health’ and ‘herd health’ could save billions of dollars by
stopping disease outbreaks in animals rather than people
• It’s estimated that a global investment of USD25 billion over 10 years in One Health work would
generate benefits worth at least USD125 billion

Big opportunities exist for livestock-health
to address antimicrobial resistance (AMR)
By following a 3R approach to rational drug use:
o Reduce overuse of antimicrobials via policy, regulatory and market incentives
o Replace antimicrobials with livestock vaccines and disease-resistant livestock breeds wherever
possible
o Refine practices in animal husbandry and biosecurity
By ensuring essential partnerships and investments
o Collaboration among both countries and the health, livestock and environment sectors
o WHO-OIE-FAO Global Action Plan on AMR
o An annual investment of USD9 billion will generate USD10–27 trillion in global benefits (2017–
2050)

Livestock research to transform
human health
• Improving herd health & livestock productivity.
o1.8M African cattle have been protected against lethal East Coast fever by an ILRI-supported
vaccine, which is greatly raising milk yields and disposable incomes.
• Improving food safety in the informal markets of developing countries.
oTraining of milk processors and sellers in India’s Assam state has made dairy products much
safer for one million people.
• Tools to help disease control agents stop zoonotic diseases and their human
pandemics.
oA decision-support tool for Rift Valley fever protects 50 million people in East Africa from infection.

Environmental health

Livestock and environment: mixed messages

Intensity of current greenhouse gas emissions
generated in livestock production
(Herrero et al., 2014)

Production of the greenhouse gas methane
falls as animal productivity rises

Meeting the rising livestock demand
through improved livestock production and efficiency
• Create productivity-efficiency win-wins
 The US reduced its carbon footprint per unit of milk by 63% over 60 years by
improving cow productivity
 South Asia’s dairy sector has similar potential to reduce its greenhouse gas
emissions—by 38%
• Obtain accurate livestock greenhouse gas emission figures
 Support developing-country-led solutions to climate change as specified in their
nationally appropriate mitigation actions
• Make more use of ‘new science’
 Develop ‘low carbon’ cows, e.g. by modifying their rumen
• Support livestock’s essential role in a robust bio-economy
 Make optimal and balanced use of biomass

Competition for land and grains?
Maybe not!
Inedible by humans
86%
Could be eaten by
humans
14%
6 billion tonnes dry feed
Feed production
10%
Grassland that
could be
converted for
crops
14%
Pastures/rangelands -
not suitable for crops
27%
Crop agriculture
49%
5 billion ha global agricultural area
Latest for 1 kg boneless meat:
2.8kg human-edible food for ruminants
3.2kg human-edible food for monogastrics

Livestock research to transform
environmental health
• Enhancing people’s adaptation to climate change in
ways that also mitigate climate change.
o Research on livestock greenhouse gas emissions in Kenya is
helping developing-world governments to refine their
climate change mitigation strategies.
• Research to generate ways for people and
communities to use livestock assets to build their
resilience to shocks.
o Index-based livestock insurance in Kenya and Ethiopia is
helping pastoralists better cope with drought.
 The Kenya Livestock Insurance Program (KLIP), an index-based
livestock insurance program developed from ILRI research, paid out
USD7 million during the recent drought to 33,400 pastoralist
households, improving their food security and helping them protect
their assets.

Developing capacity to undertake research
 Fellowships
 Internships
 Training courses
 Institutional development
 Alumni-led communities of practice
In a typical year at ILRI:
• 70 research fellows
• 150 graduate (MSc., PhD) fellows
• 50 interns
• 1200 short course trainees
• >50 journal papers by fellows

A food systems transformation agenda
Food and nutrition
security
Livelihoods and
economic growth
Human health
Environmental
health
CGIAR global challenges
ACIAR goals

This presentation is licensed for use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.
better lives through livestock
ilri.org
ILRI thanks all donors and organizations who globally supported its work through their contributions to the CGIAR system

CGIAR research program on Livestock
Strong, consistent support from ACIAR: AUS$1.3M/year (2017 and 2018)
• New work on anti-microbial resistance:
• ‘AMUSE-Livestock’: a tool to harmonize data collection on
farmers´ rationales for antimicrobial use in livestock
production systems in low and middle-income countries,
piloted in Ethiopia, Uganda and Vietnam
• Improved access to livestock health services in
Kenya:
• New partnership model between County Governments and
private agrovets during vaccination campaigns.
• Governments provided vaccines while private sector offered
additional services including deworming, tick control and
information
• Sector plans: Ethiopia Livestock Master Plan
• Index-Based Livestock Insurance –mitigating risk for
the vulnerable

BecA-ILRI hub (up to 2015, AUS$11M)
• Thermostable PPR vaccine
• Improved testing for aflatoxin in
maize in Kenya
• New composite flours from
amaranth
• Epidemiology and improved disease
surveillance for African Swine Fever
• African Biosciences Challenge Fund
(2010 – 2016):
– 220 scientists (40% women) worked on
own projects
– 585 students and early career scientists
from NARS trained
From design to delivery….multi-disciplinary….participatory

Enhancing the Competitiveness of Beef Cattle Smallholders in
Botswana (AUS$1.9M, 2012 – 2015)
in Botswana
This ACIAR-funded project found great scope for
enhancing smallholder livestock competitiveness
in Botswana through better:
• Market-oriented policies
• Disease control and government-supported
private animal health services in rural areas
• Control of FMD for increased livestock marketing
in southern Africa
• Meat quality for the lucrative EU market
• Access to arable land for fodder production

Food safety
in Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam
This ACIAR-funded research finds:
• Animal-source foods (ASFs) are valued highly
by poor people in these countries.
• The riskiest ASFs are also the most nutritious.
• Taboos and beliefs influence food choices
by and for pregnant women and infants.
• The urban poor have high concerns about
food safety and low trust in food systems
and official quality assurance programs.
• Choices in food consumption are increasingly
driven by media stories and food scares.
• Enhancing traditional food processing is an
overlooked opportunity for providing better
nutrition, health, income and gender equity
for poor people.

Controlling (zoonotic) livestock diseases
stops their transmission to humans