Better lives through livestock
Environmental footprint of African livestock systems-
case studies in Kenya
Phyllis Ndung’u
Graduate Fellow
International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)
Better lives through livestock
Tropentag Conference
15 September, 2021

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Background of the study
 African livestock systems are of low productivity, heterogeneous and multi-
purpose.
 How does that affect the environmental footprint of these livestock systems?
 Objective: of our study was determining the greenhouse gas (GHG) performance
of smallholder livestock systems.
Descriptive Factors Nandi Bomet Nyando
% Adult females in the herd 42 45 37
% Adult males in the herd 4 5 23
% Growing in the herd 19 15 6
% Calves in the herd 35 35 34
% of lactating Females 53 60 22
Average daily milk yield (kg/day) 4.1 3.6 2.2
Average Herd size (numbers) 9.1 8.7 8.5

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Materials and Methods
 Sample size: 313 smallholder farms
• Conducted a life-cycle assessment (LCA), accounted
for emissions from;
 Enteric fermentation (Tier 2 estimates)
 Manure management: manure on pasture,
enclosure and piles (Tier 2 emission estimates)
 Feed production – Interviews and emissions
from ecoinvent
• System boundary was set at “Cradle-to-farmgate.”
• Functional unit was set as “Crude Protein” which
encompasses both milk and meat.
NOTE: Emissions were calculated on animal-by-
animal basis to account for weak-links e.g.,
unproductive animals in the herd

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Results: Enteric methane emission factors - Cattle
• Nyando lower emission factors compared to Nandi and Bomet.
• IPCC Tier 1 estimates (2019) are 12-70% higher.

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Results: Farm-Level Emission Intensity Distribution - Cattle
Region EI (kg CO2-
eq/kg Milk
Range
Nandi* 2.1 0.78 – 18.42
Bomet* 2.2 1.01 – 35.42
Nyando* 4.9 0.49 – 178.4
Western Kenya* 2.3 0.49 – 178.4
Kaptumo, Kenya 2.6 0.9 – 4.3
Europe 1.3 -
* Represents figures reported in Median
• Differences in emissions intensities (EI = emissions per unit of product) are attributed to differences
in farm CP outputs – the higher the CP output the lower the EI

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Take Home message
• Improved absolute emissions estimates are important especially for inventory
reporting.
• Simultaneous presence of farms with very high and very low EIs even between
neighboring enterprises.
• To move to low EI operations, we need to increased farm outputs achieved at a
minimal increase in emissions.
• Emissions intensities demonstrate a farm’s overall GHG performance especially
where there is presence of unproductive livestock owned for a variety of non-
economic reasons has shown to be a major cause of large on-farm emissions.