Mario Herrero is a senior agro-ecological systems analyst with more than 15 years experience working on strategic livestock-livelihoods and the environment research projects in Africa, Latin America, Asia and Europe. He leads ILRI’s Sustainable Livestock Futures Group where he manages over 15 staff and an annual budget of US$4 million. A known team player with an extensive network of partners and donors, he works in the areas of livestock and global change, climate change (impacts, adaptation and mitigation), development of scenarios of livestock and livelihoods futures, multi-scale integrated assessment, sustainable development pathways for livestock systems, ex-ante impact assessment of livestock interventions and investment opportunities, and others. He has experience working at different scales, from the animal and farm level to the regional and global levels. He has coordinated several global integrated assessment projects such as the CGIAR global assessment of food production systems, ecosystems services and human well-being. Additionally, he has contributed to numerous international assessments such as the 2010 World Development Report, the 2007/2008 Human Development Report and the 2007 Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture. He has participated in international task forces such as IPCC’s Task Force on Greenhouse Gas Emissions Guidelines and has served in several donor and science advisory committees on livestock and the environment. He has published more than 150 fully refereed papers, book chapters and reports in his areas of expertise and is currently on the editorial board of Agricultural Systems, and a guest editor for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal (PNAS) in the area of livestock, sustainability science and global change. He has also supervised over 60 academic theses on different aspects of animal production systems.
 
Selected publications
 

Herrero, M., Thornton, PK, Havlik, P. and Rufino, M. 2011. Livestock and greenhouse gas emissions: mitigation options and trade-offs. In: Wollenberg, E., A. Nihart, M.L. Tapio-Bistrom, and C. Seeberg-Elverfeldt (eds) (2011) Climate Change Mitigation and Agriculture, Earthscan, London, UK (in press)
 
Thornton, PK, Herrero, M and Jones PG. 2011. Adaptation to climate change in mixed crop-livestock farming systems in developing countries. In Handbook on Climate Change and Agriculture  (R. Mendelsohn and A. Dinar, Editors). Edward Elgar Publishers, US (in press).
 
 
Ericksen P J, Thornton P K, Notenbaert A, Cramer L, Herrero M (2011). Mapping hotspots of climate change and food insecurity in the global tropics. Report tothe CGIAR Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security Research Programme, ILRI, Nairobi, 77 pp.
 
Herrero, M., Macmillan, S., Johnson, N., Ericksen, P., Duncan, A., Grace, D. and Thornton, PK. 2011. Chapter 14. Improving Food Production from Livestock. In: State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet. The Worldwatch Institute, Washington DC. W.W. Norton and Company Publishers, New York, p. 155-163.
 
Bryan, E, Ringler, C, Okoba, B, Koo, J, Herrero, M and Silvestri, S. 2011. Agricultural Land Management: Capturing Synergies between Climate Change Adaptation, Greenhouse Gas Mitigation and Agricultural Productivity. Report to the World Bank. Report 3b of the project “Adaptation of Smallholder Agriculture to Climate Change in Kenya”. IFPRI – KARI - U of Georgia – ILRI. International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington DC, 100 p.
 
Thornton P K and Herrero, M 2010. The potential for reduced methane and carbon dioxide emissions from livestock and pasture management in the tropics. PNAS 107, 19667-19672.
 
Herrero, M., Thornton PK., Notenbaert AM., Wood S., Msangi S., Freeman HA., Bossio D., Dixon J., Peters M., van de Steeg J., Lynam J., Parthasarathy Rao P., Macmillan S., Gerard B., McDermott J, Seré C., Rosegrant M. 2010. Smart investments in sustainable food production: revisiting mixed crop-livestock systems. Science 327, 822-825.
 
Liu, J., You, L., Amini, M., Obersteiner, M., Herrero, M., Zehnder, A.J.B., Yang, H. 2010. A high resolution assessment of nitrogen flows in cropland. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) 107, 835-840.
 
McDermott, J.J., Staal, S., Freeman, H.A., Herrero, M., van de Steeg, J. 2010. Sustaining intensification of smallholder systems in the tropics. Livestock Science 130, 95-109. 10.1016/j.livsci.2010.02.014
 
Thornton, P.K., Jones, P.G., Alagarswamy, G., Andresen, J and Herrero, M. 2010. Adapting to climate change: agricultural system and household impacts in East Africa. Agricultural Systems 103, 73-82
 
van Breugel, P., Herrero, M., van de Steeg, J., Peden, D. 2010. Livestock water use and productivity in the Nile Basin. Ecosystems 13, 205-221.
 
Herrero, M., Thornton, P.K., Gerber, P. and Reid, RS. 2009. Livestock, livelihoods and the environment: understanding the trade-offs. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 1, 111-120.
 
Rufino, M., Herrero, M., van Wijk, M., Hemerink, R., de Ridder, N and Giller, K., 2009. Lifetime productivity of dairy cows in smallholder systems in the highlands of Kenya. Animal 3, 1044-1056.
 
Thornton, P. K., Van de Steeg, J., Notenbaert, A, and Herrero, M. 2009. The impacts of climate change on livestock and livestock systems in developing countries: a review of what we know and what we need to know. Agricultural Systems 101, 113-200.
 
Tittonell, P., van Wijk, M., Herrero, M., Rufino, M.C., de Ridder, N. and Giller, K.E. 2009. Beyond resource constraints – Exploring the biophysical feasibility of options for the intensification of smallholder crop-livestock systems in Vihiga district, Kenya. Agricultural Systems 101, 1-19.