Improving environmental sustainability of livestock systems in the developing world
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Presented by Jimmy Smith at the Agri4D annual conference on agricultural research for development, Uppsala, Sweden, 25−26 September 2013
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Improving environmental sustainability of livestock systems in the developing world
- 1. Improving environmental sustainability of livestock systems in the developing world Agri4D annual conference on agricultural research for development Uppsala, Sweden, 25−26 September 2013 Jimmy Smith, ILRI Director General
- 2. Key messages • Smallholder livestock systems can help us meet the 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
- 3. Livestock and the sustainable development goals
- 4. 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
- 5. 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
- 6. 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, eggs in the next three decades in developing countries
- 7. Empower women with livestock: SDG02 • Women undertake up to 70% of agricultural work in many parts of the world • Almost two-thirds of the world’s 1 billion poor 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
- 8. 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.
- 9. Ensure food/nutrition security with livestock: SDG05 • Milk, meat, eggs provide essential protein, energy, micronutrients • Consumption of even small amounts of animal-source foods: - combats under-nutrition - improves cognitive development - increases physical growth • Developing countries lead in global food production - 500 million smallholders support more than 2 billion people - smallholder crop-livestock systems produce about 50% of global food Conway 2012; Herrero et al. in press
- 10. 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 is produced by 1 million smallholders • Livestock provide means for women to earn incomes, for households to save and build assets, for farmers to plough their land
- 11. Manage natural resources with livestock: SDG07 • Livestock are a main user of land and source of GHGs • Importance of manure: 23% of nitrogen for crop production comes from manure • Crop residues contribute up to 70% of the diets of ruminant animals in developing countries • Grass still makes up 50% of all the biomass consumed by the world’s livestock • We can improve livestock efficiencies in poor countries without moving to industrial grain-fed systems
- 12. Livestock and the environment
- 13. Smallholder livestock keepers and the environment Livestock as CAUSE? Livestock as SOLUTION? Livestock as VICTIM?
- 14. Global greenhouse gas efficiency per kilogram of animal protein produced Large livestock production inefficiencies in the developing world present an opportunity Herrero et al PNAS (in press)
- 15. Growth scenarios for the livestock sector Strong growth Fragile growth High growth with externalities
- 16. Waste to worth Different trajectories demand different environmental solutions Strong growth Fragile growth High growth Restoring value to grassland Closing the efficiency gap
- 17. Closing the efficiency gap
- 18. Production efficiency – developed countries Source: Capper et al., 2009 Feed, breed, health = 4 fold milk increase
- 19. Possible GHG opportunities • Develop capacity for quantifying GHG 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 countries to obtain country-specific information about their agricultural GHG emissions • Identify pro-poor mitigation options for smallholder agriculture in the developing world
- 20. 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
- 21. Water opportunities Feed, water and livestock management; integrated crop- livestock systems 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 local breed (natural pasture) cross bred (natural pasture) local breed (sorghum) cross bred (sorghum) livestock water productivity $/m3 (for milk)
- 22. Restoring value to grasslands
- 23. Potential carbon sequestration by 2040 Source: adapted from: Thornton and Herrero, PNAS (2010)
- 24. Potential carbon sequestration (Tg C/yr) in global rangelands by grazing severity and continent Light Moderate Strong Extreme Total Africa Australia/Pa cific 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 grazing improves carbon storage Source: Conant and Paustian 2002
- 25. Pay livestock keepers for wildlife conservation Payments for wildlife conservation can provide pastoral communities with income to pay for livestock vaccines, food and school fees
- 26. 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
- 27. Waste to worth
- 28. 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)
- 29. Opportunities for manure management • Manage manure and nutrient cycling to maximize the use of nutrients and capture of methane • Make and support policy and institutional changes that promote responsible waste management • Improve breeds to reduce GHG emissions from manure Source: Butterbach-Bahl, 2012
- 30. Key messages • Smallholder livestock systems can help us meet the 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
- 31. Conclusions Opportunities to address environmental issues through research livestock development are huge − and as yet largely untapped
Editor's Notes
- Livestock systems in developing countries now produce about50% of the world’s beef,as well as 41% of our milk,72% of our lamb,59% of our porkand 53% of our poultry(Herrero et al., 2009);In south Asia more than 80% of farms are less than 2 hectares; in sub-Saharan Africa smallholders contribute more than 80% of livestock production; and globally farms with a few ruminants, such as two cattle and half-a-dozen sheep or goats (i.e. 2 tropical livestock units (TLU)) and 2 hectares of land contribute 50-75% of the total livestock production. South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa have 45% and 25%, respectively, of the world’s 725 million poor livestock keepers (FAO 2012b).
- Notes from Tim:Livestock production and products have huge value for the world's poor.That small-scale livestock production can be encouraged to be carried out in the most environmentally sustainable way.Whilst the smaller producers of the developing world are likely to be net victims (rather than contributors)of global climate change and other forms of degradation of the environment –and so need rather urgently to adapt to this –they do also contribute to climate and environmental harmand so we must encourage practices that minimize that contribution. The contribution of livestock producers from different types of production system – be they 'smallholders', semi-intensive or industrial producers –need ultimately to be quantified both in absolute and relative (i.e. intensity) terms.Whilst the absolute share from smallholders (for example of GHG emissions) may be less than that from larger producers –the emissions intensities are almost certainly much higher – and that is being addressed in ILRI research.
- This new map of greenhouse gas efficiency per kilogram of animal protein produced,made by Mario Herrero, an agricultural systems analyst formerly of ILRI and now at CSIRO,shows that the current large inefficiencies in livestock production in developing countriesoffers great opportunities to make smallholder livestock systemsboth more productive and environmentally friendly.
- Notes from Tim:The three 'areas' of the Global Agenda of Action – which were determined by a wide group of stakeholders at the inception meeting in Phuket in 2011 – do seem to cover the range of issues rather well.
- Note from Tim:Improving natural resource use efficiency is all about closing yield gaps and there is great potential for this in the often very innefficient smallholder systems. But yield gaps need here to be taken in context of people's needs and objectives within different systems. It is not simply a matter of closing yield gaps it is a matter of optimizing productivity to a number of ends, and understanding why some of these ends (pastoral production systems, for instance) might not easily lead towards the closure of yield gaps. Where are the opportunities is the question we need to be asking.
- The methane produced by livestock can be halved by doing very simple things,such as:improving the quality of the crop residue feedprocessing the feedgiving a slightly more balanced diet to livestock.
- The methane produced by livestock can be halved by doing very simple things,such as:improving the quality of the crop residue feedprocessing the feedgiving a slightly more balanced diet to livestock.
- Note from Tim:2) Restoring value to rangelands is an important consideration in some of the systems with with we deal. It is here that there are possibilities in relation to payment for environmental services, for example.
- Source of information: Thornton PK and Herrero M (2010) The potential for reduced methane and carbon dioxide emissions from livestock and pasture management in the tropics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences107, 19667-19672.
- Conant RT and Paustian K (2002) Potential soil carbon sequestration in overgrazed 17 grassland ecosystems. Global Biogeochemical Cycles16, 1143-1152.
- ILRI and partners are leading a project in Burkina Faso and Ethiopia to investigate the potential of payments for wildlife conservation on rangelands in these two countries..Past ILRI research in Kenya shows that such payments have helped pastoral households:To purchase life-saving vaccines and treatments for their livestock, the basis of their livelihoodsTo buy nourishing foodsTo pay school fees
- In the developing world there is increasing interest in payment for environmental services (PES) as an instrument for environmental management that can also generate impact on poverty reduction particularly in rural areas.To date, there are few examples of PES targeting livestock keepers. A recent ILRI report, Greening livestock: Assessing the potential of payment for environmental services in livestock inclusive agricultural production systems in developing countries, assesses the potential of payments for environmental services (PES) in various livestock inclusive farming systems in the developing world.Application of PES to livestock inclusive agricultural production systems describes examples of emerging and operational PES in livestock inclusive agricultural production systems. This includes PES for climate regulation, watershed management and hydrological services, and biodiversity conservation.Among key findings:• Although livestock are widely distributed across agro-ecosystems of the developing world, there are still very few PES schemes that specifically involve livestock keepers. Besides, there are opportunities for livestock keepers to benefit from PES for climate regulation, watershed and biodiversity conservation.• Increased demand and scarcity of some environmental services generated from livestock production create opportunities for implementing PES schemes in livestock inclusive agricultural production systems but currently methods and tools for measurement and verification of environmental services are not well developed.• Although there is considerable potential for private markets in PES, experience shows that public funding remains essential for public and quasi-public goods such as biodiversity conservation, particularly at national and global scales.PES schemes offer a diversification potential to livestock farmers for improving their livelihoods and for poverty alleviation. The cash flow generated through PES schemes produces multiple benefits including: poverty reduction, store of wealth, income diversification and multiple social and cultural gains.• PES is a tool to consider for promoting agricultural transitions towards a green economy. PES schemes have the potential to stimulate a green livestock sector, allowing farmers to adopt sustainable agricultural land management (SALM) practices that reduce the impact on the environment and help conserve biodiversity and ensure sustainable use of natural resources. This could provide a triple win: provision of environmental services, biodiversity conservation and livelihood improvements.
- Note from Tim:3) Reducing waste is becoming increasingly important in areas where the high densities of smallholders, operating inefficiently but at the same time disconnected from the land-base, are contributing to these awful inefficiencies in nutrient-cycling. There are massive possibilities for improving this through manure management and such-like. Again, it is a matter of looking for the opportunities.