ILRI News

While livestock production levels in developed countries are holding steady, livestock production systems in developing countries, particularly in the emerging economies, are rapidly changing to meet a rapidly growing demand for livestock foods due to those countries’ growing populations, cities and incomes. Some of these fast-evolving livestock production systems are using ever-larger quantities of water and other natural resources and emitting ever-larger amounts of greenhouse gases, which are causing global warming. Many people are questioning whether the increasing demand for meat and milk in developing countries can be met within equitably negotiated and sustainable greenhouse gas emission targets.

The (surprising) answer is ‘yes’. Research tells us that emissions from livestock systems can be reduced significantly through technologies and policies, along with incentives for their implementation.

Livestock and greenhouse gas emissions

Livestock contribute up to 18% of the global greenhouse gas emissions that are ‘anthropogenic’, or generated by human activity. The main greenhouse gases from livestock systems include methane produced by the belching of animals (25 per cent), carbon dioxide (CO2) produced by uses of land that encourage the decomposition of organic substances (32 per cent), and nitrous oxide (N2O), commonly known as ‘laughing gas’, produced by spreading manure and slurry over lands (31 per cent).

As one would expect with such great differences in livestock production systems in different regions of the world, different systems in different regions emit very different amounts and types of greenhouse gases. Overall, most emissions to date have come from industrialized countries practicing factory farming, the least from developing-country family farms. Moreover, two of the most significant contributors to the greenhouse gases produced by livestock systems in the developing world are the rapidly expanding industrial livestock operations in Asia and deforestation in Latin America to make room for livestock grazing and feed crop production.

That said, however, it is also true that the emissions per animal in poor countries tend to be much higher than those per animal in rich countries, for the reason that most livestock in poor countries are maintained on poor diets that reduce the efficiency by which the animals convert their feed to milk and meat. And the increasing human populations, urbanization and demand for livestock foods in developing countries means that future increases in livestock greenhouse gases will come from the South. Livestock researchers at ILRI and elsewhere are helping people to manage trade offs among natural resource use, livestock emissions and livestock productivity.

Seven ways to reduce greenhouse gases emitted by livestock

Here are seven practical ideas for reducing the greenhouse gases emitted by livestock.

1 Reduce consumption of, and demand for, livestock foods in developed countries

Whereas under-consumption of livestock foods is a main problem in developing countries, over-consumption of livestock foods—including fatty red meat, eggs and full-fat milk and dairy products—damages the health of many people living in affluent societies. The demand for cheap livestock foods in rich countries in many cases is met by imports of livestock products or feed grains from the developing world, the transport and supplies of both of which can lead to environmentally damaging land-use practices and over-use of water and other natural resources, which in turn increase the levels of greenhouse gas emissions in those developing countries. Reducing the relatively high levels of consumption of livestock foods in the developed world would thus not only help improve the health of many people in rich countries but also reduce environmentally damaging livestock production practices in both rich and poor countries, leading to significant reductions in the emissions of carbon dioxide and methane gases.

This point raises another: to ensure that any negotiated emissions targets that may be established are equitable as well as feasible and useful, we shall also have to institute programs to track and account for the greenhouse gases ‘embedded’ in the many livestock and feed products traded worldwide. Such a system would give buyers of livestock products some understanding of the ‘greenness’ of the products they are buying. Common sense can no longer be our guide. Such are the complexities of modern food chains that beef raised on the pampas of Argentina and shipped to the North American Midwest might, for example, have generated lower levels of greenhouse gases than corn-fed beef raised, slaughtered and packaged right there in the Midwest.

2 Improve the diets of ruminants in developing countries

Providing cattle, water buffaloes, sheep, goats and other ruminant animals in developing countries with better quality diets increases their feed-conversion efficiencies and thus reduces the amount of methane generated in the production of a unit of meat or milk. Many small-scale farmers can, for example, improve the diets of their ruminant animals by better managing their grazing lands: they can rotate the pastures they use, plant improved species of pasture grasses, make strategic applications of animal manure, and develop ‘fodder banks’ of planted legumes and other forages. They can make use of more strategic combinations of available feed resources. Many crop-livestock farmers can supplement the poor grass diets of their animals with the residues of their grain crops after harvesting. (Although many cereal residues are of relatively poor nutritional quality, research by ILRI and the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics shows there is considerable potential for improving the nutritional quality of stover.) And some can give their ruminants feed additives that manipulate the microorganisms living in the rumen to quicken microbial fermentation. What’s needed are practical methods to monitor the effectiveness of mitigating greenhouse gases using these practices as well as policy environments to make implementing them cost-effective.

3 Help farmers in developing countries obtain and maintain higher-yielding breeds

Where resources allow and breeding services exist, replacing low-producing local animals of the developing world with fewer and better fed animals of higher yielding breeds would reduce total emissions while maintaining or increasing livestock yields. Such shifts include keeping more productive types of a given breed, such as by crossing local cows with genetically improved dairy cow breeds to produce cross-bred cows that possess traits both for both hardiness and higher milk yields.

4 Better match livestock species to environments in all countries

Switching species to find those better suited to particular environments and resources could raise animal productivity levels. In some circumstances, exchanging ruminant animals for pigs, chickens and other monogastrics (which possess single- rather than four-chambered stomachs) could reduce total methane emissions, although high amounts of grain used to feed the monogastrics can offset the methane saved. For this reason, alternative feeds and feeding practices for monogastrics urgently need the attention of the research and development communities.

5 Impose regulatory frameworks for managing manure in all countries

Regulatory frameworks could reduce nitrous oxide emissions from manures, particularly by enforcing better management of excreta in the larger livestock operations in developing countries and applications of slurry and manure in the developed countries. Furthermore, developing ways to monitor and verify reductions would open the door to mitigation payment schemes.

6 Apply land-use policies that forestall cultivation of new lands

Some carbon lost from agricultural ecosystems in the past can be recovered. Any management practice that increases the photosynthetic input of carbon and/or slows the return of stored carbon to carbon dioxide via respiration, fire or erosion will increase carbon reserves, thereby sequestering carbon. We can thus reduce carbon dioxide emissions by applying land-use policies that forestall the cultivation of new lands now under forest, grassland or non-agricultural vegetation.

And rangeland and silvo-pastoral livestock systems would store much greater amounts of soil carbon than they do now if we put in place land use and livestock policies and practices suited to local conditions. Such interventions could serve not only to sequester more carbon but also to provide smallholders farmers and herders with payments for the services their local ecosystems provide the wider community.

7 Provide incentives to adopt mitigation strategies, particularly for poor communities

Finally, successful implementation of livestock mitigation strategies, particularly in poor countries with scarce resources, inadequate rural and peri-urban infrastructure, and inappropriate agricultural policies, will demand a series of smart and equitable incentive systems that encourage people to adopt mitigation strategies and practices. Success in these countries will also depend on developing new kinds of links among institutions that have not formerly worked together, on reforming livestock and agricultural policies, on inventing techniques for monitoring carbon stocks, and on developing appropriate and easy-to-use protocols for verifying greenhouse gas emissions. But the lesson ILRI researchers have learned from their pastoral research may prove to be most relevant here: mitigation activities have the greatest chance of success in poor and hungry communities when they build on traditional institutions and knowledge while building up food security.

This is Chapter three of the ILRI Corporate report 2008–09: Download the full report

According to Carlos Seré, Director General of ILRI, the livelihoods of a billion people, particularly in Africa and Asia, are attached to livestock – and consequently to their greenhouse gas emissions. If livestock are removed, many of these people have few other livelihood opportunities.

He argues: “improving feeding is one of the key interventions to improve the efficiency of livestock systems, i.e. to produce less methane per kilo of output” – which will relieve pressure on other natural resources like forests.

He cautions that aggregating livestock emissions globally misses the big differences between developed and developing countries. It is important to separate the two.

“To design policies you really need to clearly separate the problem.” In developed countries, livestock production is mainly commercial and there are a number of policies and instruments that can be applied to reduce livestock emissions.

In poor countries as well, he states, livestock emissions can be reduced – “but we need to be aware of the stark trade off. We may end up with lots more poor people and hungry children.”

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New options should focus on helping hungry animals and people adapt to climate change while mitigating the greenhouse gas emissions of small-scale livestock production systems.

Farm animals have been providing the world with an uncommon array of benefits since before the dawn of agriculture. Indeed, most small-scale farming even today would be impossible without them. But it is the world’s poorest people—some one billion of them—who depend on cattle, sheep, goats, chickens and other domestic animals the most. Livestock keeping helps them sustain their herding cultures or small-scale farming (e.g., animal manure fertilizes croplands; cattle and buffalo pull ploughs and transport farm produce to markets). Livestock provide them with a rare means of earning and saving an income (people can sell milk, eggs, manure or surplus stock, or they can find jobs in dairy or related businesses). Livestock foods feed hungry people (families can consume the milk, meat and eggs their stock produce or sell these high-quality foods to buy cheaper starchy foods). And livestock are a last hedge to protect households against the shocks common to the rural poor—from drought, flood or disease that destroys food crops in the field, to market distortions that make farm produce worthless, to civil unrest that makes people flee their homes, and, finally now, to a warmer world with increasingly unpredictable weather and extreme weather events.

But the inexorable rise of human populations, along with the aspirations and appetites of their growing middle classes, have led also to global livestock populations of increasing numbers and increasingly intensive livestock production practices. While overconsumption of red meat and other livestock foods is damaging the health of many people of the North, under-consumption of these nourishing foods is hurting, and killing, many people of the South. In terms of the environment, livestock production globally causes up to 18% of the human-generated greenhouse gases that are warming our planet. Livestock do this both directly (methane, for example, is produced in the rumination processes of cud-chewing animals) and indirectly (such as the felling of forests to make room for fodder crops and ranching). The factory farms of industrialized countries not only can treat animals inhumanely but also can pollute air and water and threaten human as well as animal health. The herding and farming families of developing countries, on the other hand, typically maintain their ruminant animals on poor-quality feeds that make conversion of feed to milk and meat inefficient and environmentally damaging—skinny ruminants on poor diets, while not competing with people for grain, produce much more methane per unit of livestock product than do well-fed cattle, sheep and goats.

Just one hundred years ago, the principles and practices of animal husbandry were pretty similar across all the regions of the world where it was practiced (which pretty much meant all the regions of the world). But as schisms have opened up between the livestock production systems and peoples of today’s rich and poor worlds, we must now start from a new understanding—an understanding based on decades of livestock and systems research—that ‘local context’ is everything.

In the North, we need to focus on mitigating the impacts of livestock production and consumption on climate change. We already have many workable and alternative ways of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the environmental and health ‘bads’ of intensive livestock production systems. We need to get them implemented and to begin monitoring our reductions in livestock-produced greenhouse gases as we begin to build more sustainable and healthy food systems.

In the South, where most of the world’s poor live, work and are fed by hundreds of millions of small-scale farmers and herders, the impacts of climate change will be greatest—and typically experienced at first hand. These farmers and herders include the largely rainfed crop-and-livestock farming communities that, unknown to many, have become the world’s biggest source of staple foods for the poor as well as many of the world’s most renowned herding cultures.

In the rural South, there are few ways of making a living other than by producing food from the land. Therefore, while we need to encourage people to mitigate the greenhouse gas emissions generated by their livestock enterprises, we need to focus most urgently on helping these people and communities to adapt their production systems to climate change. New incentives and technology and policy instruments should allow them to continue to provide the foods, jobs, livelihoods and environmental services that their livestock make possible and doing so in increasingly more efficient and sustainable ways.

With a perfect storm of food, water and energy shortages fast approaching—and 1 billion livestock livelihoods at the very centre of a nexus of human, climate and environmental vulnerabilities—the time for helping developing countries and communities to transform their livestock sectors has come.

As we move further into a 21st century characterized by depleted natural resources and the projected ‘human tsunami’ that is expected to peak by mid-century with a population of more than 9 billion, those of us in research for development need to focus our energy and attention on the little- as well as well-known levers that drive big change.

Across the developing regions of Africa, Asia and Latin America, the raising and selling of farm animals, and the increasing consumption of milk, meat and eggs, together represent one of those ‘big-change’ levers. The ubiquitous small-scale livestock enterprises found in every country of the developing world can represent pathways out of poverty and hunger. They can also promote climate change. Livestock researchers are acutely aware that they are working at these critically important crossroads.

This is Chapter one of the ILRI Corporate report 2008–09: Download the full report

The study emphasizes that livestock production in developing and developed countries are very different animals.

While rising consumption of meat, milk and eggs is one of the factors in epidemics of obesity and heart disease in developed countries, consumption of meat and milk in developing countries is associated with good rather than bad health.

In poor countries, where most people subsist on poor starchy diets, the study highlights the fact that modest amounts of these foods improve people’s nutrition and health, lower mortality rates, and enhance child development.

Furthermore, the new analysis by researchers at the Nairobi-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the Center for Collaborative Conservation at Colorado State University, finds that the current environmental risks posed by livestock are driven mainly by the impacts of over-consumption of livestock foods in wealthy countries and rapidly growing demand in emerging economies, particularly in China, Southeast Asia, and Brazil.

‘Livestock are a lifeline for hundreds of millions of people, for whom livestock represent one of few options available to improve their incomes and nutrition,’ said Carlos Sere, director general of ILRI.

Livestock researchers at ILRI believe that rather than trying to rid the world of livestock it’s preferable to find ways to farm animals more efficiently, profitably and sustainably.

More on livestock and poverty: challenges at the interface

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Arusha—East Africa has some 63 out of the total number of 100 species of Acacia trees found in Africa. Acacias, the poor-man’s fuel and forage, have developed highly specialised characteristics that make them superbly adapted to the challenges of living in Africa—a continent with all its variability and year-on-year extremes of climate change. The temperate world worries when it gets a few inches of rain. The African world worries when, for three successive years it gets none. If the world at large is really concerned about man’s impact on climate change, it does not need grant-dependant scientists in East Anglia to fiddle with its data; it just needs to see what man is doing to Africa by counting the dwindling numbers and varieties of Acacias.

Drive the Makayuni to Mtu wa Mbu stretch of road in northern Tanzania, a wonderfully smooth length of 30 kms of Japanese-laid tarmac and compare this with the Meserani to Makayuni road, a somewhat longer stretch of Italian-laid tarmac. In the former there are still some different species of Acacia trees to count, in the latter there are whistling thorn (Acacia drepanolobium). The latter stretch had a variety of trees, according to residents of the area. The rapidly thinning stands in the former suggest that it will not be long before it joins the latter, as yet another man-made arid and relatively unproductive bit of mismanaged African rangeland. Does anyone care? Not really, as it is those funny, red-robed peoples, along with their progressively emaciated cattle, who are the immediate apparent losers. That we are ultimately all going to be losers has not yet penetrated the policy-making classes peering out of their air-conditioned offices in the commercial capital city of Dar es Salaam at the immaculate and well-watered green surroundings.

Acacias are characterised by having thorns—in fact their name comes from the Greek “akis” and means “barb” or “sharp point” (See Najma Dharani’s book – “Field Guide to the Acacias of East Africa”). Their thorns take on quite impressive features, as dramatically portrayed in the film, “The Gods must be Crazy” when one notoriously hooked thorned variety, the “Wait a bit” thorn (Acacia mellifera) catches the leading lady’s underwear, requiring the leading man—playing the part of an accident-prone elephant dung expert—to untangle the situation. The Acacia’s thorns have a survival purpose, by restricting how much they are browsed by livestock and wildlife, and when the barbs are braved, swarms of biting ants and rapidly rising levels of toxic leaf sap, as second and third lines of defence, further deter the browser’s attention. Left alone to themselves, and despite the animals and the odd bush fire, the Acacias generally do ok—it’s just man that they are defenceless against. The cut of the hard steel axe and the subsequent rising column of smoke from the charcoal burners mound spell a rapidly increasing doom for the species—especially the better hard wooded more productive varieties such as Abyssinica, Gerrardii, Hockii, Nilotica, Tortillis and Xanthoplea. It is the mature, pod-bearing trees that go first, providing more bucks for the effort of cutting them down, and pod bearers provide the seeds for the next generation. No pod bearers, no next generation.

But surely open treeless rangeland is much better than being “invaded” by all that spikey useless bushy Acacia stuff. Where the species are of predominately of the less useful varieties this might to some extent be true—but in reality the arid and semi-arid rangelands need Acacias for all the multitudinous benefits they confer. Being leguminous, their number one value is in improving soil fertility supporting rangeland productivity and providing a critically needed dry season reserve of digestible protein for livestock and wildlife alike. They are also highly valuable for their root systems, which counter soil erosion and create water catchments whilst their foliage provides life-saving shade. Lopped branches and fallen trees for fuel wood, honey production from twice-yearly flowering gums and traditional medicinal products from roots and bark infusions are sustainable uses that man has practised for generations. In many traditional societies the value of the Acacias is well recognised and there are strictly applied controls on what and how much is harvested and by whom.

The advent of the urbanisation and dramatic increases in predominately impoverished populations have created an ever upwards spiralling demand for low-cost fuel for cooking the daily diet of maize meal and, if lucky, beans. Much of this fuel comes from charcoal produced largely from the seemingly infinite tracts of Acacia once found growing freely throughout African rangeland. Now, as the Meserani to Mto wa Mbu road is telling, that infinity has a horizon which is rapidly being approached.

I will leave it to the better-informed scientists to tell us how much carbon is captured by well-managed and productive rangeland as compared to the rapidly evolving treeless wastelands. I just know that it is a lot and stated to be significantly in excess of the carbon captured by rain forests. So why do we not have any “Save the Rangeland” appeals? Do East Anglians prefer to take their holidays in the Amazon? I will also leave it to the scientists at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Nairobi to tell us that African rangeland-reared cattle contribute less than 3% of all methane emissions attributable to livestock production, whilst at the same time supporting the livelihoods of some several million pastoralists and providing Nairobi, and much of the rest of Africa, with an affordable, organic and renewable source of high quality animal protein. Just to put one in the eye of Paul and his fellow advocates for a meat free world it has been shown (not, I hasten to add, by scientists from East Anglia) that just 3 grams of meat, or equivalent livestock product, a day in the diet of a growing African child has a significant and readily measurable benefit in terms of cognitive development and ultimate success in developing a fully functioning intelligence. I am not one for denying them this chance but I need to remember that this time, I am talking trees.

So what to do? Grow trees, the right varieties of Acacia, and plant them, in the right places. Simple really, except for one small problem—the seeds do not readily germinate. It’s just another Acacia thing. In order for its seeds to survive the long periods of insufficient rain and not infrequent droughts, the seeds are coat hardened to withstand the strongly desiccant environment. It is said by many that the seeds need to be tenderised in order to germinate either by passing through the stomach of a ruminant and/or be subject to the heat of a bush fire. The latter may be true, though more die than survive, but the former not so true— though those seeds that receive just enough but not too much grinding by the ruminant’s molars are more likely to germinate than those fully ground or not ground at all. The Acacia hard wood species tend to have fleshy pods which are highly edible and nutritious for ruminants, providing a particularly protein-rich food source in the dry season. Their ingestion and passage through the ruminant’s gut leads, ultimately, to the seeds being distributed far and wide, as testified by my friend’s Acacias, which have largely derived from the cow manure they have used on their well-watered lawn!

The challenge “boils down” to how to grow Acacias, what varieties and where to plant them. It is a lot to do with caring for an environment where climate challenge [change to challenge is easily done] is an established fact of life, whilst it is the actions of uncaring fellow citizens and the misinformed/weakly applied policies allowing them, that seem to me to be the real change of concern. Just count the trees and see each day their number dwindling. Ruminant guts and bush fires apart, by application of the appropriate technique, Acacias can be induced to germinate and that magic moment of life, its reproduction, follows. Such a technique is likely to include the physical collection, storage with insecticide, preconditioning [soaking Acacia seeds in hot water works for some species but not the harder tougher ones—more physical abuse, otherwise known as scarification, is needed] and sowing of the seeds in long-range weather forecasted periods of prolonged rains. Maybe someone should ask Copenhagen to allocate a proportion of the carbon funds for the management of rangelands inclusive of the planting of Acacias—a present for the earth that will last longer than Xmas.

[COPENHAGEN] A “masterplan” for agricultural research and technology transfer was unveiled at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen today by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), the world’s largest alliance of agricultural scientists.

The 45-page strategy calls for, on the one hand, action that harnesses multiple advances that the group says are waiting to be rolled out. The second strand is to boost research into longer-term solutions.

The report thus calls for an intensive effort to “speed the development and dissemination of dozens of existing improved technologies”, including hardier crop varieties and more efficient ways to manage water, trees, soils, livestock, fish and forests. These have emerged from more than 30 years of research, the group says.

“Turning this wealth of knowledge into action will create immediate benefits, bolstering food security and adapting agriculture to climate change impacts in the near term, while mitigating future impacts through reduced greenhouse gas emissions,” said Thomas Rosswall, chair of the CGIAR Challenge program on climate change, agriculture and food security.

“A quick response now will also buy us time to develop the more potent climate change solutions that will be needed 10 years from now.”

CGIAR experts also argued that the proposed adaptation fund – to enable developing countries to cope with the impacts of climate change – should cover agriculture.

“Agriculture is part of the [climate change] problem and part of the solution,” said Rosswall.

Agriculture contributes to a third of the total global greenhouse gas emissions but is also highly vulnerable to changes in temperature and rainfall, and extreme weather events.

An International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) analysis published this month (December) predicts a 10–40 per cent decline in crop yields by 2050. Food prices are projected to rise by 30–70 per cent by 2050 even without climate change — and by an additional 30–100 percent due to the impact of climate change.

The CGIAR report highlighted the use of computer modelling to inform decisions about difficult trade-offs, such as those between environmental impacts and socioeconomic benefits in the global livestock sector.

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Nairobi, for example, is modelling ways of making crop and livestock production more profitable without depleting natural resources, said Philip Thornton, senior scientist at ILRI.

It has prepared maps indicating where the environmental pressures of such production are most intense.

Computer simulations are also helping to explore the potential of crop substitution — for example, replacing beans, a major crop that is declining in many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, with the more drought-tolerant cassava.

In this short video, ILRI's Alan Duncan introduces the IFAD-funded 'Fodder Adoption Project' based at ILRI.

He outlines the approach followed in the project – trying to strike a balance between the technological and institutional angles.

The project helps groups of stakeholders – farmers, private sector, dairy coops, the government – get together in 'innovation platforms' where they can develop joint actions that address livestock fodder problems.

Initially the project went with a traditional approach, focusing on technologies. As the process evolved, other issues came in, more actors joined the platforms, and the technologies – growing improved fodder – acted more as a catalyst for people to come together to discuss a wide range of other issues (dairying, health, etc).

Fodder proved to be a useful 'engine' for the group to identify a much wider range of issues to address – along the whole value chain.

He explains that this type of work facilitating stakeholder platforms is "not trivial." But it is essential: "Technology is only one small part of the equation and really a lot of it is about human interactions and how organizations behave."

He concludes: "We have lots of promising technologies, but in themselves they are not enough to bring about widespread change in livestock systems."

See his presentation with Ranjitha Puskur

More information on this project

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In this short video, Ranjitha Puskur from ILRI shares some lessons emerging from the DFID-funded Fodder Innovation Project.

The project looks at fodder scarcity and how to address it, but from the perspectives of capacities, policies and institutions.

This current second phase of the project, she says, emerged from the realisation that the availability of technologies is not really the limiting factor, policy and institutional factors are the major bottlenecks.

She briefly introduces the innovation systems approach that underpins the project: Essentially, the aim is to form and facilitate a network of different actors in a chain or continuum of knowledge production and its use, mobilizing all their various resources and capacities to address a problem.

What outcomes and changes has she seen?

At the farm level, farmers are changing their livestock feeding and management practices; there is an emerging demand for technologies, inputs and services that, ironically, were earlier promoted without success.

"Farmers are seeing the need for knowledge and can articulate demands to service providers."

She emphasizes that "getting a network of actors isn't an easy process, it takes time". Different organizations with different interests and motives have to be brought around the table to contribute and benefit.

"It needs great facilitation skills and negotiating skills which are not very often core competences of researchers like us."

Beyond facilitation of this network formation, "we also see that linkages don't happen automatically" … we need a facilitating or broker organisation to create them.

In her project, they work through key partner organisations: "This works well, but they needed much support and mentoring from us."

She concludes with two final observations: Policies are a very critical factor and it is important to engage policy makers from the outset, ensuring that we know what they really want, and that the evidence base is solid.

Traditional project management approaches don't seem to work in such projects: We need nimble financial management, and very responsive project management.

"Very traditional logframes and M&E systems seem very inadequate."

See her presentation with Alan Duncan

More information on this project

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Last week, the CGIAR System-wide Livestock Programme (SLP) held its annual planning meeting in Addis Ababa.

In this short video, John McDermott, ILRI Deputy Director General for Research introduces the SLP. He argues that its focus on the intensification of crop-livestock systems is critical: More than a billion people in developing countries are involved in these smallholder systems.

The SLP brings together 12 CGIAR centers, and, he mentions, "one of the key things we've been struggling with is how to improve the performance of these [crop-livestock] systems" – so people can get more income and more benefits from them; also so the systems can be more sustainable.

Reflecting on the just-completed SLP meeting in Addis Ababa, he highlights one of the major issues under discussion: how the crop biomass from these systems can be used more effectively – as food, as animal feed, and as fuel. Furthermore, how the crop residues can be fed back into the soil.

"Now we are turning our attention more to this tradeoff between whether you actually feed these residues to animals or whether some of them should stay with the soil."

Watch the video: