Livestock and Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Klaus Butterbach-Bahl (ILRI)
ILRI@40 Livestock and Environment workshop
Addis Ababa, 7 November 2014

Agricultural GHG Emissions in SSA
• Agriculture contributes roughly 14% of total anthropogenic
GHG emissions (Herzog 2009) if landuse change is
considered up to 30% (Vermeulen et al., 2012)
• Agriculture is responsible for 47 and 84% of anthropogenic
CH4 and N2O emission, respectively (Smith et al. 2007)
• But these estimates are based on studies in Europe / N America /
Australia
• Importance of smallholder farms in SSA
• 75% of agricultural production and 75% of job production in SSA
(Africa Development Bank, 2010)
• 80% of farms in SSA < 2 ha (FAO 2010)
• Yield are very low (~1 Mg ha-1)

Sources of GHG emissions during livestock production
(Dickhoefer et al., 2014)

GHG intensity of livestock production
(Herrero et al., 2014)

Work and vision
• Baselining GHG emissions from livestock systems
• Test feed/ breed/ health/ herd management options
to significanty reduce GHG emission intensities
• Develop MRV schemes for livestock systems
• Reducing the environmental footprint (climate/soil/
water) – win-win situations