Research project on fodder marketing in Bihar, India

Posted on October 26, 2009 by ILRIComms

A recently completed research project has, for the first time, systematically studied the trading of fodder in Bihar with a view to determining the importance of fodder trading and marketing as a means of mitigating fodder scarcity. The study has also identified differences in the nutritive value of traded fodders.

Dr Iain Wright of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) which led the study explained, Scarcity of fodder is one of the key constraints to the development of the livestock sector in Bihar as well as India generally. We know that trading of fodder is important within villages, between villages and even between states, but until now we have not known much about the volumes traded nor the importance of fodder trading in supplying fodder to areas where there is a scarcity. We now understand more about the way in which fodder is moved within Bihar and even outside the state and how the marketing of fodder could be made more effective by partnering with a competent retail graphics design company.

Crop residues make up almost 50% of the fodder that is fed to livestock in India, and are even more important in Bihar where over 60% of all feed is contributed by wheat and rice straw, with rice straw especially important. Dr Wright explained that recent research by ILRI had shown that there were big differences in the nutritive value of straw from different varieties of rice. ‘We wanted to see whether these differences in the feeding value of rice straw are reflected in the prices paid for straw in the markets.’

The results of the study show the diversity of the supply and demand for fodder in different parts of Bihar. Areas with intensive cereal production supply dry fodder to the rest of Bihar. Dr Nils Teufel an ILRI researcher explained that farmers with small land-holdings have to purchase dry fodder to feed their animals while farmers with surplus fodder are selling about 45% of their dry fodder production. “Within villages, more than 80% of trade in fodder is usually directly between producer and consumers but trade between districts generally involves up to four trade transactions,” he added. Urban dairy producers are major buyers of fodder – they buy about 73% of dry fodder sold by traders.

The type of fodder used also depends on the intensity of production: with increasing intensification of dairy production, the share of wheat straw being fed to dairy animals increases.

Laboratory analysis of fodder samples showed the expected superior nutritional quality of wheat straw compared to paddy straw. In fact, the analysed paddy straw samples showed below average quality characteristics.

Traders and consumers evaluate straw by its appearance, but neither appearance nor the nutritional quality characteristics seem to have a strong effect on prices. This is in contrast to some other parts of India where prices are higher for fodder with better nutritional quality.

A workshop at which the key findings of the project will be presented and discussed is being organized by ILRI on 27 October 2009 at the ICAR Research Complex for the Eastern Region, Patna. The guest of honour will be Sri Anil Kumar Singh, Director, Dairy, Department of Animal Husbandry and Fisheries, Government of Bihar. Participants will include representatives of the primary stakeholders, i.e. fodder producers, traders and livestock owners of the state as well as research scientists and officials from different government departments. Members of the Press are cordially invited to attend.

For further information
contact Dr Iain A Wright, Regional Representative, Asia. Tel: 987 187 7038, email: i.wright@cgiar.org

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) is one of 15 International Agricultural Research Institutes which are part of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. ILRI carries out research to alleviate poverty through the development of the livestock sector in Africa and Asia. Its headquarters are in Nairobi, Kenya. It has a team of scientists based in Hyderabad working to alleviate problems of feed scarcity and an Asia Regional Office in New Delhi. For further information on ILRI see www.ilri.org

The research project was funded by the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) Vienna, Austria.

ILRI weighs in on agricultural research e-consultations

Posted on September 28, 2009 by ILRIComms

What’s Needed? What’s Missing? What’s New? in Asia

What should be the future agriculture and natural resource research agenda? That is the big question being asked in a series of electronic consultations being held in different regions of the world. The answer will determine the way that millions of dollars are spent in the coming years by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). The regional e-consultations will feed into a Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD), to be held in Montpellier, France, in March 2010.
This Global Conference is being designed as a multi-year process creating new ways of working together that significantly enhance the development value of agricultural research. The organizers are designing GCARD to be open and inclusive and to help reshape agricultural research and innovation for development through an agreed action plan and new framework. In doing so, they are also ambitious to increase the resources for, and benefits of, such research. Iain Wright, Regional Representative for Asia at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), made the following responses to nine questions posed in September 2009 in this GCARD 2010 e-consultation for the Asia-Pacific region.

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The future looks good: With the right support, policies and investment

Posted on February 28, 2009 by ILRIComms

Iain Wright, ILRI's regional representative for Asia gives his views on the livestock sector in India in an article published in the Jan-Veterinary Today (India).

The value of livestock is rising
Publication of Veterinary Today marks a milestone in development of the livestock sector in India – a sector that until now has received less prominence than it deserves. Livestock production has a diverse as well as critical role to play in food and nutritional security, rural employment, development and economic growth. Perhaps even more than cropping agriculture, the focus of most developing-country agricultural strategies, it can reduce poverty for millions of people in India. Here on the sub-continent, livestock are more equitably distributed among the poor than land and most of poor people who own no land depend on livestock to some extent for their livelihoods, as do millions of farmers who own small plots of land and nomadic or semi-nomadic pastoralists who make use of common rangelands.
Although the share of agriculture in India’s gross domestic product (GDP) has fallen from 37.9% in 1980/81 to 19.7% in 2005/06, and is expected to continue to fall as the country’s economic development progresses, the share of the value of livestock in agricultural GDP has been rising steadily from about 16% in the early 1970s to 26.6% in 2006/07.

But government expenditure is falling
Despite its growing importance, government expenditure on livestock as a proportion of total spending on agriculture has generally been falling for the past 40 years (although it did increase during the Tenth Five-Year Plan, 2002–07). Nevertheless, as a percentage of the value of output, public expenditure has fallen over the past 15 years from about 3.5% to just over 2%.

Despite this fall in public expenditure, the livestock sector is growing rapidly at 4.3% per year, fuelled by growing demand for milk, meat and eggs. In India as in other developing countries, demand for livestock products increases as incomes rise and people replace a proportion of the staple foods in their diet with higher value foods (livestock products, fruit, vegetables, fish etc.). Interestingly, although we tend to associate these changes with urban centres, the same change is happening in rural areas as well – in any small town or village in India and you will see a booming trade in milk and other livestock products.

The phenomenal growth in the dairy and poultry industries is well recognized, but the increasing demand for livestock products does not stop at milk, poultry meat and eggs. Demand for mutton and pork is growing too. For example, research by ILRI in India’s northeastern States shows that the increased demand for pork has pushed prices up by about 20% in real terms in the past 5 to 6 years – good news for the many smallholders who keep a few pigs in their backyards. The opportunities for commercial production of goat meat are good in many areas of India, but so far little attention has been paid to commercialization of small ruminant production.

So the future looks good, with a rising demand in the domestic markets and opportunities for export as well. India is now exporting about US$600 million of buffalo meat to countries in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. But there are technical, institutional and policy constraints threatening the livestock sector achieving its potential.

Focus needs to shift to productivity per animal
A large part of the increase in output from livestock in the past has come from increasing animal numbers. This is not sustainable in the long run and the focus now needs to shift to increasing productivity per animal, which will require better feeding, breeding and veterinary care. Providing enough feed is a challenge. Almost 50% of this country’s feed supply to ruminant animals comes from crop residues (paddy straw, wheat busa, sorghum stover, and other remains after harvesting), with green fodder in scarce supply, India’s grazing areas rapidly shrinking and few farmers outside the poultry sector able to give their farm animals concentrate feeds. Crop residues are relatively poor in nutrients but there is a big range between varieties. The digestibility of different varieties by animal stock, for example, ranges from 36 to 52% in Kharif sorghum and 43 to 60% in Rabi sorghum stover. Research trials have shown that farmers who switched from poor- to high-quality stover increased their buffalo milk yields by about one litre per day. Those who substituted low-quality for high-quality groundnut haulm produced an extra half litre of milk per buffalo per day.

For India to achieve high levels of livestock production, however, the country’s livestock will need more than the wastes of crop production. We need to develop other cost-effective feed supplements that provide better nutrition for selected animals at key times in their production cycle.

Holistic approach to animal health needed
Genetically improved livestock will be important in this livestock development work. Most of India’s past efforts have focused on developing cross-breeding schemes, with some notable successes, but artificial insemination (AI) services still reach only about 10% of India’s dairy producers. While cross-breeding can increase milk yields, we also need to explore programmes for improving the country’s existing native breeds, which have evolved adaptive traits suited to local conditions. And we have yet to accurately assess the value of lost production due to animal diseases, which has been estimated at 10% of the value of the output of the livestock sector but could easily be twice that. Animal health care needs to cover both preventive and curative measures. While programmes to control foot-and-mouth disease are being implemented by the Government of India in selected districts and will be extended in a planned manner to other parts of the country, other diseases continue to take their toll. For example, mastitis probably costs the dairy industry Rs70 billion every year in lost production.

Support services desperately needed
India’s agricultural extension and support services have traditionally been weaker in the livestock sector than those in the crop sector; if India is to realize a flourishing livestock sector, it will have to make available to farmers support services, including animal health, breeding and feeding as well as credit. These should be provided by the private sector as well as the government, especially in the country’s high-potential areas. Studies show that farmers are willing and able to pay for good-quality services; what’s missing are enabling and supportive environments provided by the government that will allow the private-sector to operate. By encouraging the private sector, government can then use its scarce resources to target more marginal areas and communities, which are less attractive to private companies. Even here, government does not have to be the front-line service provider: it can provide funding while non-governmental organisations or even the private sector actually provide the services in innovative public-private partnerships. Key to successful extension is provision of advice and services in an integrated manner— complete integrated packages that deliver information on breeding, feeding and health coupled with business support services. Such integration needs staff with a comprehensive understanding of livestock and its role in farming systems and this in turn has implications for the way in which professionals are educated and trained.

Livestock’s unrealized potential needs to be exploited
Given the size of India’s livestock sector, it is surprising that India has no overall livestock policy. I am encouraged that the National Livestock Policy is in the final stages of development and look forward to its launch. This policy will be important to give direction to the livestock sector and to provide the context within which programmes can be developed and implemented. But since livestock is a State matter, it will be important for State Governments to consider whether they too should develop livestock policies. Chhattisgargh and Orissa have led the way in this respect, with Madhya Pradesh also developing a policy and the policy in Sikkim yet to receive cabinet approval.
India’s livestock industry has come a long way in recent years. There remains, however, a lot of unrealized potential in this sector. There is no simple way of achieving this – the country is too large and too diverse for a simple ‘one-size fits all formula’. The requirements of a large dairy farmer in Punjab are a world away from the needs of a tribal household in a remote part of Madhya Pradesh with a few chickens and goats. Nevertheless, with the right support, policies and investment, each of these farming households can develop and flourish.

—ENDS—

This article appeared in Veterinary Today Volume 1, Issue 2 (Jan-Feb 2009) published in India. It has been adapted for the web and reprinted with permission from Veterinary Today.

Contact

Dr Iain A Wright
ILRI’s Regional Representative in Asia
CG Centres' Block B, National Agricultural Science Centre
Dev Prakash Shastri Marg
New Delhi 110012
India
email: i.wright@cgiar.org
Iain Wright
ILRI’s regional representative in Asia

Helping Asia’s dairy farmers take advantage of rising demand and prices for dairy products

Posted on October 22, 2008 by ILRIComms

FAO workshop and strategy say fair prices, appropriate policies and strategic investments and partnerships are key for the sector's development.

A report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in April 2008 concludes that policy decisions impinging on the smallholder dairy sector should be taken with a broad understanding of their direct and indirect implications on rural as well as urban populations.

The report indicates that the recent control of milk prices in several Asian countries could be counter-productive to supporting the dairy incomes of smallholders and rural development generally. With prices at record levels for both dairy outputs (milk) and inputs (feeds, energy costs), fixed and administered prices tend to hold back big as well as small dairy producers from responding quickly to the changing price signals.

Price controls particularly hurt dispersed smallholders, who often lack social networks to help them find and sell to milk collectors offering the highest prices. On the other hand, equitable and remunerative prices for farm-gate milk encourages smallholders to adopt improved and sustainable technologies and management systems that improve their milk quality as well as quantity.

The recent and rapid escalation of commodity prices is the perfect environment in which to test what policies are most conducive to the development of the agricultural sector. Low food prices over the past 20 years led to an underinvestment in agriculture, particularly in smallholder dairying, which, unlike rice and other staples of food security, has been a neglected and relatively unsupported area of research and development.

Fair pricing policies, says FAO, are the first step to this sector’s development.

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The sudden rise in dairy prices that took the market by surprise in late 2006 was due to the elimination by the European Union of subsidized dairy exports as well as to drought in many large dairy-product exporting countries and higher feed prices worldwide. Throughout 2007, prices for dairy products rose faster than those for any other agricultural commodity group, finally reaching a plateau in late 2007 and abating only in early 2008.
This recent increase in dairy prices potentially offers an opportunity for hundreds of millions of poor, and in many cases, landless, smallholder dairy producers to benefit from these structural, or permanent, shifts in the global demand and supply of dairy products.

This is particularly true for Asia, where growth in both milk production and consumption has been the strongest in the world; nearly 80% of the 238 million tonnes of milk produced in 2007 was supplied by farmers with 1 to 5 cows.

While developing countries in Asia and elsewhere consume only 40% of global milk production, these countries import nearly three-quarters of global shipments of dairy products, including 80% of milk powder exports from developed countries. With the world’s largest net trade milk deficit, Asia is projected to increase its milk production by 3% a year over the next decade, slower than the previous decade but still double annual global growth rates.

This is supported by expectations that, although dairy product prices have been easing in the first half of 2008, increased prices are here to stay. Commodity projections by both FAO and the Food and Agriculture Policy Research Institute indicate that milk prices over the next decade will remain 50% higher than historical averages.

Smallholder farmers have the capacity to respond quickly to higher milk prices because of their ample scope for rapid yield increases. Current average milk yields in developing countries are just one-fifth that in developed countries because most smallholder farmers feed their dairy animals well below their potential.

With enabling pricing policies and technical support to producers on improved feeding, on-farm management and reducing spoilage, milk yields in poor countries could increase dramatically to meet the rising global demand, bringing millions out of poverty in the process.

How policymakers in region have responded to higher commodity prices
To date, most of the policy responses in Asia to escalating food prices have focused on rice, maize, wheat and other food staples. Some countries, such as India in 2007, briefly limited dairy product exports to ensure domestic price stability. Many importing countries reduced import tariffs on both livestock products and feed inputs and many put in place price caps on milk and other dairy products.

Asian policy responses to escalating food prices

• China imposes price caps on meat, milk, eggs, grain and edible oils (Jan 2008)
• China subsidizes meat consumption for the poor (for 6 months)
• Thailand imposes price controls on dairy products, chicken, eggs, beef and pork.
• Pakistani cities set retail fluid milk prices below the cost of production.
• Thailand reduces the tariff rate for soybean meal from 4 to 0% to reduce the costs of feeding local animals.
• Indonesia eliminates import duties on soybeans (for 6 months).
• Indonesia subsidizes tempe and tofu producers.
• Korea cuts import duties on corn and soybeans.
• China reduces the tariff rate for soybeans from 3 to 1% for 3 months (Oct 2007–Mar 2008).
• Indonesia takes a series of measures to stabilize food prices.
• India abolishes the import duty on corn (Jan–Dec 2007)
• India bans the export of pulses (Jun 2006–Mar 2008).
• Vietnam reduces tariffs on meat, offal, eggs, milk products, vegetable oils and animal feeds by 30–50% and reduces the import tax rate for corn used for animal feed from 5 to 2%.

The different policy responses and the way they are implemented alter economic incentives for the different actors along the dairy marketing chain and have differential impacts on food security in urban and rural areas. Policy responses that seek to ensure food security and access by controlling markets, such as through setting ceiling prices, usually lower prices, preventing potential gains from being realized, and hurt rural livelihoods.

The dairy sector in most developed countries is highly supported through regulated prices and high tariffs to ensure stable and high incomes for dairy producers. This is not the case in developing countries, where dairy policies are less prevalent and price controls are often used to ensure low prices for urban consumers.

A recent FAO review on lessons learned in smallholder dairy development reveals that government interventions in the dairy sector—particularly price policies that create or remove incentives for producers to increase yields—strongly impact rural livelihoods and food security for better or worse, as well as, importantly, the investment climate for the sector.

A key question for policymakers is to what extent the international dairy prices are being transmitted into local economies. FAO’s investigation of price movements in a few countries in Asia identifies some of the factors conditioning the transmission of the prices. Domestic policies influence market signals while the costs of doing business determines the extent to which individual producers respond to those market signals.

The first determinants of how international prices translate into local prices are exchange rate movements and a country’s net trade position. While world dairy prices have increased substantially in recent years, these have been accompanied and partly caused by a substantial depreciation of the US dollar against many currencies.

The exchange rate factor means domestic prices don’t necessarily rise as much as international prices. The impacts of international prices on local prices are highest in countries with stable currencies, such as Indonesia and Bangladesh. In countries whose currencies have been appreciating, milk importers such as the Philippines have benefited from cheaper imports while milk exporters such as Thailand have suffered from reduced export earnings.

Prices of dairy products throughout Asia have increased over the past two years. From 2006 to 2008, farm gate prices of fluid milk rose from 10% (Malaysia) to 14% (Nepal) to 30% (Vietnam) to 69% (Mongolia). In the Philippines, which, after China, imports more dairy products than any other Asian nation, the government stopped all support for dairy activities two decades ago, deciding to import all its dairy requirements. While the government has accorded the sector more interest in recent years, its low tariffs (1–3%) on dairy imports, instituted to assure adequate supplies of milk products for its urban consumers, encouraged milk imports.

Despite these challenges to Philippino dairy producers, the smallholder sector, comprising some 96% of the dairy farming sector, has managed to compete favourably in the open market, due to its enterprise-focused approach to dairy development and the laissez-faire pricing policy, which allows markets to determine prices. The rise in international milk prices was transferred into the Philippino wholesale market for milk powder with only a slight delay (despite the peso’s appreciating 33% against the value of the US dollar, making imports less expensive). And farm gate prices, ranging from US$0.30–0.33 from 2001 to 2006 have risen to the current range of $0.40–0.49.

Sri Lanka has also kept tariffs low on imports of dairy products to keep milk, considered ‘essential’ for food security and nutrition, affordable. As a result, price trends in international markets are transmitted almost fully to the domestic market. With relatively stable exchange rates and imports making up 72% of domestic consumption, one could assume that high international prices would lead to higher prices for local suppliers.

However, pricing structures largely determined by a state-owned milk processing company mean the higher international prices translated into nearly 50% rises in packages of locally sold whole milk powder but only a 25% increase (US$0.20–0.25 per litre) in farm gate fluid milk prices in 2007.

Sri Lankan milk producers have thus not been given sufficient incentives to invest in their dairying despite the fact that the country’s total milk collection increased by 13% in 2004 due to higher prices being paid then for milk. Also constraining incentives to engage in the Sri Lankan dairy sector are high production costs that mean that a farmer needs to keep at least three cows and produce at least 15 litres a day to earn a reasonable income from dairy.

As Asia’s fifth largest producer, Pakistan accounts for nearly 13% of global production, most of which is sourced from the country’s 8.4 million dairying households owning an average of 1 to 10 cows and most of which is consumed within the country.

Dairy’s contribution to Pakistan domestic product surpasses all the major crops and the sector has grown by more than 3% annually over the past decade, mostly due to expanding numbers of dairy animals producing low yields.

Over 2007, prices for fluid milk rose from US$0.31 to %$0.37 per litre. The price setting, however, which in Pakistan is done at district level, doesn’t take into consideration the rising costs of feed and other imports.

In both Pakistan and Sri Lanka, these prices have risen about 8 to 10% per year. Some municipalities are setting price ceiling below the cost of production. So while official milk prices in Karachi are set at RS32 per litre, black market rates in peak season often reach RS42 per litre. In response, farmers reduce or stop making new investments in their dairying, particularly their purchase of buffalo calves, whose price has risen 30–40%, a fact that may spell shortages of milk and cows in future.

Strategically positioning Asia to benefit from growing opportunities:
The Asian Smallholder Dairy Development Strategy and Investment Plan
To facilitate a timely response to this new and big opportunity for the poor, FAO and the Animal Production and Health Commission for Asia and the Pacific (APHCA), with the financial support of Common Fund for Commodities, initiated development of a regional strategy for dairy development. They started by holding a workshop in Chiang Mai, Thailand, 26–29 February 2008, attended by over 50 key policymakers and senior executives of some of the largest dairy companies in Asia. Participants included regional experts from 18 Asian countries and from the Africa-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).

At a time of record-high international dairy prices, the workshop dairy experts agreed that Asia needs concerted regional collaboration to enable its tens of millions of small dairy producers to derive the full benefits from the dairy value chain through greater productivity, better milk quality and maximum market access.

To help unleash dairy’s potential to transform rural economies in Asia, workshop members and government and private-sector representatives pledged to:
• Strengthen the ability of smallholders, who currently account for 70% of regional milk production, to supply and market quality milk to the region;
• Actively participate in a regional dairy information and exchange network that will be a channel of best practices on smallholder dairy development;
• Support the development of national action plans that would build on the pillars of the regional strategy.

In response to the outcome of the workshop, FAO committed itself, under the umbrella of APHCA, to the immediate development of a knowledge networking system on small-scale dairy development, addressing such issues as production, marketing, and processing. The results of this workshop were further elaborated the following April into an Asian Smallholder Dairy Development Strategy and Investment Plan, which has as its objective: ‘a glass of good-quality, safe Asian milk per day for every Asian child and more efficient, productive and profitable dairy food chains providing dairy producers with higher earnings.’

In November 2008, ILRI’s Markets Theme director, Steve Staal, will participate in a follow-up workshop in Bangkok with about 30 other experts, including policymakers, researchers, private sector agents and global development thinkers on dairy development and chain analysis. This informal expert consultation aims to build a body of practical knowledge on enabling policies for development of smallholder dairy. It will feed into and support the broader objectives of FAO’s regional strategy for smallholder dairy development in Asia, which is to promote investment into Asia’s dairy sector.

FAO has been working in many countries in the region to help develop national training centers for small-scale dairy processing and genetic improvement of dairy cattle. Like FAO, ILRI strongly supports pro-poor dairy policy and development. ILRI has been working to enhance smallholder dairying in Africa and Asia since early 1990s through collaborative R&D projects with national partners. ILRI’s central interest is the traditional ‘raw’, or unpasteurized, milk and dairy markets of these regions, which are huge and booming. Traditional markets make up an extraordinary 98% of total milk sold in Tanzania, 90% in Uganda, and 86% in Kenya; in South Asia, these informal markets constitute 98% of milk sold in Pakistan, 76% in India and 40% in Sri Lanka. The dairy products traded in these informal markets are often liquid raw or soured milk and traditionally processed products such as the ubiquitous milk sweets of India.

ILRI’s collaborative smallholder dairy projects are looking for win-win options that enhance the welfare of small farmers and market agents while improving the nutritional status of poor households and enriching exhausted soils on smallholder mixed crop-and-livestock farms.
A smart way to meet this triple bottom line is to pay scrupulous attention to already vibrant local dairy markets—to what products local people are already selling and buying. As ILRI veterinary researcher Nick Hooten says:

‘What all of us tend to vastly underestimate is the huge and growing size and viability of local dairy markets in developing countries, with their traditional products designed for local preferences rather than Western appetites. These local markets should be our starting point for enlarging dairy pathways out of poverty.’

A collaboration path toward action
Embarking on such an ambitious initiative requires collaboration and cooperation between governments, institutions and other local and regional partners. FAO and ILRI have a long history of working together on smallholder dairy development and a regional umbrella supporting dairy development in Asia necessitates partnerships that focus on merging research results into development action in the field.

A recent ILRI/FAO publication, Dairy Development for the Resource Poor—A Comparison of Dairy Policies and Development in South Asia and East Africa—outlines an agenda for pro-poor dairy policy and development. The authors suggest that, generally speaking, dairy development policies that build on traditional production systems, with a particular focus on employment generation and food safety and quality, are likely to be pro-poor. Solid knowledge of policies and their impacts on the structure of the dairy sector throughout the region will provide the stage for future initiatives.

ILRI and FAO look forward to collaborating with interested partners in the region to further the goal of ensuring that every day Asian children have access to at least one glass of Asian milk.

Related Information:
Proceedings of an FAO/APHCA/CFC-FUNDED workshop on:
Developing an Asian Regional Strategy for Sustainable Smallholder Dairy Development

Strategy and Investment Plan for Smallholder Dairy Development in Asia

Asia Pacific Dairy Strategy Project information

APHCA Brief: Dairy prices, policies and potential opportunities for smallholders in Asia, April 2008, by Nancy Morgan, Livestock Policy Officer, FAO Regional Office in Bangkok, Asia-Pacific Dairy Strategy Project

ILRI’s presentation to the workshop, ‘Dairy development for the resource poor: Lessons for policy and planning strategies’, by Nick Hooten, 27 February 2008.

Further Information Contact:
Nancy Morgan,
Livestock Policy Officer, FAO Regional Office in Bangkok
Asia-Pacific Dairy Strategy Project
Email: Nancy.Morgan@fao.org

Steve Staal
Director of Enhancing Market Opportunities Theme
ILRI-Nairobi
Email: s.taal@cgiar.org

Climate and health experts warn that scientists must work together, or risk ‘disastrous consequences’ to human and animal health in Africa

Posted on September 19, 2008 by ILRIComms

Consensus: Spread of Malaria, Rift Valley fever, and Avian flu far more likely if researchers continue to ‘operate in silos’ and if solutions ignore local conditions.

Faced with the prospect of more variable and changing climates increasing Africa’s already intolerable disease burden, scientists must begin to reach out to colleagues in other fields and to the people they want to help if they hope to avert an expected “continental disaster,” according to leading climate, health, and information technology experts, who met in Nairobi last week.

Climate change will further increase the already high variability of Africa’s climate, fostering the emergence, resurgence and spread of infectious diseases. “A warmer world will generally be a sicker world,” said Prof. Onesmo ole-MoiYoi, a Tanzania medical, veterinary and vector expert. “We scientists need to adopt a new way of working, one that makes African communities bearing the burden of disease part of the solution rather than part of the problem.” The separate fields of human health, animal health, climate, vectors and environment must come together to avert a “continental disaster,” according to leading experts who attended the meeting.

Patti Kristjanson of ILRI, which hosted the meeting, agreed. “We need to do things differently than we have in the past. The impact of disease will increase if we continue to operate in silos. Our only chance at reducing the impact of deadly diseases in Africa is to increase collaboration across the disciplines of environment and health, and in a way that involves local communities. Failure to do so could lead to disastrous consequences.”

The experts concluded a three-day meeting sponsored by Google.org and organized by researchers from the IGAD Climate Predictions and Applications Centre (ICPAC), the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI), the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (icipe), the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and Google.org.

The meeting was one of the first on the continent to link climate and health researchers to reduce Africa’s infectious disease burden. The experts cited malaria, Rift Valley fever and bird flu as diseases poised to spread to new areas, along with an increasing threat of diseases such as Chikungunya and the emergence of as yet unknown disease pathogens, unless researchers, disease control workers and local communities share information and communicate faster and more strategically across their professions.

Prof. ole-MoiYoi of icipe and Kenyatta University stressed the importance of tapping the expertise of local communities. “By using bed-nets and anti-malarial drugs, and by removing the human-made breeding sites of mosquitoes, communities in the Kenyan Highlands have managed to stop recurrent malaria epidemics.”

“To combat disease, we need a holistic approach that involves local communities,” ole-MoiYoi said. “We can control malaria across Africa if we can divorce ourselves from the linear thinking that looks for ‘a’ solution and adopt an integrated approach.”

The World Health Organisation (WHO)estimates that changes to the earth’s climate are already causing five million more severe illness and more than 150,000 more deaths each year. By 2030, the number of climate-related diseases is likely to more than double.

Dr. Rosemary Sang, a researcher from KEMRI, described a case study of an outbreak of Rift Valley fever that claimed the lives of 155 Kenyans in late 2006 and early 2007. The virus is transmitted from livestock to people either through handling of infected animal material or by the mosquito vectors. Sang said the outbreak, which peaked 24 December, highlights most of the critical challenges researchers and health officials face in connecting data and advanced warnings to realities on the ground.

Kenya’s Garissa District, in the remote north-eastern corner of the country, experienced heavy rains and flooding starting in mid-October 2006, resulting in standing pools of water that became breeding sites for the mosquitoes that transmit Rift Valley fever. The first veterinary interventions did not take place until mid-January 2007, almost three months after the onset of the heavy rains, 2.5 months after mosquito swarms were reported, 2 months after the first livestock and 1.5 months after the first human cases were recorded, respectively.

“We need to move up our response times to these outbreaks,” said Sang. “All of the warning signs of an outbreak were there but we weren’t able to connect the dots.”

She cites poor tele-communication and roads in the region as major challenges. “Many of these areas lie outside mobile phone networks and far from health or veterinary clinics. As animals and then people began to get sick and die, the word didn’t get out fast enough.”

In the end, however, human and animal health officials, working together, were able to save the lives of more people in the 2006/07 outbreak than in the same region in 1998, when more than 600 people died from Rift Valley fever and millions of dollars were lost in livestock trade and tourism.

“The key is predicting outbreaks before they happen and preparing high-risk areas to act quickly to reduce the impact on communities,” said Sang.
Frank Rijsberman of Google.org called on technical experts to strengthen their capacity to predict and prevent infectious diseases. That will take more and better climate, vector, human and animal data, as well as more data sharing.

“The links between the climate and health research communities across Africa need to be strengthened,” Rijsberman said. “By sharing information we can stop some disease outbreaks and dramatically shorten our response time to others – which can not only save lives but also protect communities against subsequent severe economic losses.”

Mapping the way forward
The researchers pointed to climate models and new mapping software such as Google Earth and Health Map as useful tools for integrating vast amounts of environmental, health, and poverty data. “We’re working to identify the populations of people that are most vulnerable to disease and other external shocks,” said Phil Thornton of ILRI. “That includes communities that are at high risk for malaria because, for example, they are located both far from health clinics and near to water sources. We make these ‘vulnerability maps’ publicly available so that these high-risk communities can get the support they need to respond quickly and effectively to disease outbreaks.”

Google.org environmental scientist Amy Luers said better disease responses will also require tackling diseases at their root causes. “We scientists have to do a better job of informing the public of the underlying drivers of the spread of infectious diseases. The impacts of increasing populations and environmental degradation will require institutional and governance changes put in place for a ‘one health’ approach to human, animal and environmental well being.”

“We need to prepare now to avoid future catastrophe,” says Prof. ole-MoiYoi. “We are discovering that climate variability is playing a bigger and bigger role in the spread and severity of diseases across the globe. Our survival, and that of our environment, may depend on our joining hands to understand that environment. And our roles in it.”

Livestock research in Asia: Strategy and action plan launched in Beijing

Posted on December 17, 2007 by ILRIComms

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and partners have launched a new strategy and action plan for livestock research in Asia to ensure research has an impact on poverty reduction.

‘Livestock Asia: A strategy and action plan for research for poverty reduction’ was launched at the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) Annual General Meeting in Beijing on 3 December 2007. The strategy and plan, which focuses on South Asia, South East Asia, and China, was created by over 50 organizations and individuals, during a five-month consultative process, facilitated by ILRI. The strategy contains a five-point action plan designed to ensure that livestock research ultimately has an impact on poverty reduction.

‘We hope that it will be of value to all those interested in reducing poverty through livestock research and development in South and South-East Asia, and China,’ explained Iain Wright, ILRI’s Regional Representative for Asia.

‘In particular, we hope that it will be used by researchers, policymakers, aid specialists and development practitioners to guide the development of their policies, programs, and projects’ said Wright.

300 million people depend on livestock in Asia

Three hundred million poor people in South Asia and another 100 million in South-East Asia and China, depend to some extent on livestock for their livelihoods. Rapidly growing economies and changing patterns of food consumption are driving increased demands for livestock products. This presents unique opportunities to reduce poverty through livestock production and marketing. The opportunities will only be realized if the poor can respond by generating marketable surpluses and accessing the market. Research towards poverty reduction through livestock can contribute to achieving this goal.

There are a number of key drivers changing the livestock landscape in Asia. These include a growing gap in income between urban and rural areas, rapidly growing demand and rising prices for livestock products, and changes in the way food is retailed, linked to changes in the supply chain. Trade liberalization is opening up new markets, but endemic and emerging diseases such as Avian Influenza can threaten access. Livestock production can have both positive and negative environmental impacts, and production systems are changing with intensification and competition for crops for human and animal feed and biofuels.

New roles emerging
There are evolving policy needs and new roles for the public and private sectors. This is taking place against a background of new communication technologies that are opening up new ways of sharing knowledge. There are, however, major challenges on how to manage knowledge effectively.

Creating the research agenda
The strategy recognizes that the poor are particularly vulnerable to external shocks because of their small asset base. It also recognizes that research is only one small but critical component in the process of improving pro-poor animal agriculture and market development.

According to Carlos Seré, Director General of ILRI, ‘No single organization can ensure that the research that it carries out will reduce poverty. This requires the collaboration of many groups of stakeholders that extend way beyond the traditional research community.’

‘To ensure that research is relevant to the needs of the poor and that research outputs result in action, new partnerships will need to be formed’ he said.

‘National and international researchers, extension services, donors, development organizations, government at all levels, the private sector, regional organizations, representatives of local groups and farmers, producer organization and consumers need to work together to create the research agenda. This will ensure that research methodologies are appropriate and that research outputs make a real difference on the ground.’

Focus on process: The ‘how’ rather than the ‘what’
In recognition of the need for stakeholders to be involved in the development of the research agenda, the Livestock Asia Strategy and Plan does not identify priority research topics. It concentrates on how research for poverty reduction through livestock could be approached and conducted, rather than what research should be conducted. If the appropriate ways of working can be defined, if relevant partnerships can be developed, and if the appropriate skills can be brought to bear, then the establishment of research priorities and topics should be a logical consequence of that process.

The Executive Secretary of APAARI (Asia Pacific Association of Agricultural Research Institutes), Dr Raj Paroda, welcomed the launch of the plan. Speaking at the launch in Beijing, he said ‘APAARI is delighted with this initiative to create a strategic plan for pro-poor animal agricultural research in Asia. It is timely, and we will certainly be a willing partner in taking this important initiative forward.’

Action points
Five key actions have been identified for implementation in the short term to improve the effectiveness of pro-poor livestock research in South and South-East Asia, and China, and the plan outlines how these action points will be taken forward:
1. Raising awareness and promoting the need for livestock research for poverty reduction
2. Developing a livestock knowledge resource for Asia
3. Defining regional research issues
4. Working in partnership
5. Capacity strengthening

Download Livestock Asia: A strategy and action plan for research for poverty reduction

Development and launch of the Livestock Asia Strategy and Plan

This strategy and plan focuses on the tropical and semi-tropical agricultural regions of South and South-East Asia, and China, regions dominated by smallholder, mixed crop–livestock systems with smaller populations of pastoralists, especially in South Asia. This plan has been produced by a large group of stakeholders in a process facilitated by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). The steps in the process were:

1. In August 2007, a Challenge Dialogue Paper was produced, following discussions with a small group of stakeholders in South and South-East Asia. The discussion paper, which set out certain assumptions, assertions, and questions, was sent to over 150 individuals representing a wide group of stakeholders from the research and development communities in the public and private sectors. They were invited to respond and provide ideas and suggestions. Forty-eight responses were received.

2. In September, the responses were summarized and synthesized in a Progress Report, which was sent to 150 stakeholders for further comment.

3. In October, two follow-up workshops were held in Bangkok and Kathmandu with stakeholders from South-East and South Asia respectively. The task was to validate the responses to the Challenge Dialogue paper, to clarify and further develop some of the ideas received, to check for gaps in information, and to identify specific activities that could be undertaken in pursuit of a pro-poor livestock research and development agenda.

4. In November, the strategy and plan was drafted. Input and comments were received from representatives from 12 countries within the region, as well as from individuals and organizations outside Asia with an interest in the region. Over 50 organisations – representing international, national and regional interests – participated in the creation of the strategy and action plan.

5. In December 2007, the strategy and action plan was launched at the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) Annual General Meeting in Beijing.

The time is now: Safeguarding livestock diversity

Posted on November 13, 2007 by ILRIComms

ILRI’s Annual Report: ‘The Time is Now: Safeguarding livestock diversity’ has just been released. The report on 2006 work focuses on how research is helping to characterize, use and conserve the world’s rapidly diminishing livestock genetic diversity.

The mission of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) is to help people in developing countries move out of poverty. The challenge is to do so while conserving the natural resources on which the poor directly depend. Among the natural resources important to the world’s poor are the ‘living assets’ people accumulate in the form of their farm animals.

ILRI works with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and many other partners to improve management of livestock genetic resources in developing countries. This year, FAO produced the world’s first inventory on animal genetic resources ‘The State of the World’s Animal Genetic Resources’, highlighting that many breeds of livestock are at risk of extinction, with the loss of an average of one livestock breed every month. The FAO report estimates that 70% of the entire world’s remaining unique livestock breeds are found in developing countries.

ILRI’s Director General Carlos Seré says: ‘Although our information on the world’s remaining livestock genetic resources is imperfect, experts agree that we need to take action now rather than wait for substantially better information to become available.

‘The accelerating threats to livestock diversity in recent years demand that we act now before a substantial proportion of those resources are lost to us forever. The time is now’, says Seré.

At a recent keynote address, the UN Under-Secretary General and Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), Achim Steiner, echoed these concerns and highlighted the implications of loss of the world’s animal genetic diversity:

‘I, like so many others, was shocked to read of the decline of genetic diversity in livestock outlined by ILRI and FAO in September (2007) at the First International Technical Conference on Animal Genetic Resources.

‘The increasing over-reliance on a handful of breeds such as Holstein-Friesian cows, White Leghorn chickens and fast-growing Large White pigs mirrors the trend in agricultural crops.

‘Mono-cultures, whether it be in agriculture or in the narrowing of human ingenuity and ideas, will not serve humanity well in a world of over six billion shortly moving to perhaps 10 billion.

‘(Mono-cultures) will not enhance stability and adaptation in a climatically challenged world’, concluded Steiner.

Download ILRI’s 2006 Annual Report: ‘The Time is Now: Safeguarding Livestock Diversity’: https://cgspace.cgiar.org/bitstream/10568/2479/1/AnnualRep2006_Safeguard.pdf

Related articles and resources on animal genetic resources

A ‘Livestock Meltdown’ Is Occurring As Hardy African, Asian, and Latin American Farm Animals Face Extinction: /archives/550

FAQs about saving livestock genetic resources: /archives/552

Films on animal genetic resources

• 3-minute film on conserving livestock for people

Livestock breeds that have helped people survive countless challenges throughout history are now dying out at an extraordinary rate. Globally, governments are discussing this problem, meanwhile this film sets out 4 approaches that can help now.

http://blip.tv/ilri/conserving-livestock-genetic-resources-for-people-summary-1369699

• 30-second film highlight on Sheko cattle

Sheko cattle come from Southern Ethiopia and there are only 2500 left in the world. They are adapted to withstand trypanosomosis, a disease that kills cattle and people.

http://blip.tv/ilri/three-endangered-african-livestock-breeds-1370212

• 30-second film highlight on Ankole cattle

Ankole cattle come from East Africa. These hardy, gentle, animals are threatened by expanding human populations and market demands. At current rates they will disappear in 50 years.

http://blip.tv/ilri/ankole-cattle-one-of-africa-s-disappearing-livestock-breeds-3982895

• 30-second film highlight on Red Maasai sheep

Red Maasai sheep come from East Africa and do not get sick when infected by intestinal worms. However, the numbers of pure Red Maasai sheep are declining.

http://blip.tv/ilri/three-endangered-african-livestock-breeds-1370212

The time is now

Posted on September 20, 2007 by ILRIComms

The world’s first Global Plan of Action for Animal Genetic Resources was agreed at a recent FAO conference in Switzerland from 3 to 7 September. While international negotiations continue, much can be done now, before it’s too late.

The First International Technical Conference on Animal Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, held in Interlaken in September, was a week-long series of negotiations organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and hosted by the Government of Switzerland to consider the current state of the world’s animal genetic resources and to reach international agreement on the best ways forward to protect these resources for long-term use. The conference opened with the launch of the world’s first report on the status of farm animal genetic resources, The State of the World’s Animal Genetic Resources. By the end of the conference, the world’s first Global Plan of Action for Animal Genetic Resources had been agreed by representatives from 109 countries. The global plan identifies four high-priority areas for animal genetic resources: characterization, inventory and monitoring of trends and risks, sustainable use and development, conservation and policies, institutions and capacity building.
Progress made at the Interlaken Conference includes:

Agreement on a global plan for identifying and conserving valuable livestock species
Agreement that livestock keepers rights are fundamental and need to be considered as part of an inclusive and equitable global plan
Agreement that incentives need to be provided to help the traditional custodians of indigenous animal genetic resources—usually small-scale livestock keepers—continue to keep their native breeds.

Overview of the Interlaken conference
On the first day of the conference, ILRI’s director general, Carlos Seré, presented a paper on ‘Dynamics of Livestock Production Systems, Drivers of Change and Prospects for Animal Genetic Resources’. He identified key drivers of change, how they were influencing current trends and future prospects, and their impacts on the management of animal genetic resources for food and agriculture.
Seré identified four drivers: economic development and globalization, changing market demands, environmental impacts and trends in science and technology. He described the trends in livestock production in industrial, crop-livestock and pastoral systems, emphasizing that while the trends are occurring in both developing and industrialized countries, the outcomes are different. In the developing world, some trends are reducing the ability of livestock keepers to improve their livelihoods, reduce their poverty and manage their natural resources. The industrial livestock production systems of developed countries have already greatly narrowed the livestock genepool, reducing our ability to deal with future uncertainties, such as climate change and zoonotic diseases.

Local breeds being crowded out
During the presentation, the ILRI director general cited replacement of indigenous tropical breeds with exotic animals as a key reason for the erosion of genetic diversity. Local breeds are estimated to be disappearing at the rate of one a month. This concern was echoed by the representative from the League for Pastoral Peoples and Endogenous Livestock Development. Ilse Köhler-Rollefson stated that policies relating to the introduction of exotic breeds and subsidies were helping large-scale production systems but hurting pastoralists.
Seré stressed that conserving our livestock genetic resources required appropriate institutional and policy frameworks and concerted international efforts. As these negotiations will take time, Seré proposed four complementary actions to improve the management of animal genetic resources and maintain our genetic options for the future. These are: provide incentives for in situ conservation of local breeds (‘keep it on the hoof’); facilitate movement of breeds within and between countries (‘move it or lose it’); match breeds to environments (‘livestock landscape genomics’); and establish genebanks (‘put some in the bank’).
These four strategies are practical steps that can help conserve indigenous tropical breeds. Seré cautioned that if actions are not taken now, it could be too late for some breeds that will soon be lost to the world forever.

Media help to raise awareness of ‘livestock meltdown’
There was extensive media coverage of the FAO Interlaken conference, with regional and international press and radio and local African TV all helping to raise awareness of the ‘livestock meltdown’ taking place.

Local livestock breeds at risk: Nature (3 September 2007) reported that indigenous animals are dying out as commercial breeds sweep the world.

‘Many of the world’s indigenous livestock breeds are in danger of dying out as commercial breeds take over, according to a worldwide inventory of animal diversity.
‘Their extinction would mean the loss of genetic resources that help animals overcome disease and drought, particularly in the developing world, say livestock experts.’

Read the full article at http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070903/full/070903-2.html (subscription required).

FAQs about saving livestock genetic resources

Posted on September 18, 2007 by ILRIComms

01. What did ILRI/FAO find and how did you find it?
How: A global assessment of livestock genetic resources has been coordinated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The assessment aimed to determine the status of the world’s livestock resources – what exists and where, what are their characteristics and the risks they may be facing, and what is the capacity of nations to deal with these. As an international organization addressing poverty through sustainable livestock production, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) develops research tools for characterizing livestock breeds of the developing world and assessing their diversity.

What?: The ‘assessment of the State of the World’s livestock resources’ (as this initiative was called) had the following findings:

Over 7000 breeds (representing mammalian and avian species) have been developed over the last 12,000 years, since the first livestock species was domesticated.
There are 40 livestock species used for food and agriculture, 5 of which – cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and chickens – account for most of the world’s food and agriculture production.
Some 696 breeds have become extinct since the early 1900s.
A total of 1,487 breeds are at risk, of which 579 are at critical levels (requiring immediate action).
Key causes of threat were identified (see examples below).
Lack of information on the world’s livestock resources—what livestock breeds and populations exist and where, what are their characteristics, do they possess unique genetic diversity—was found to be a key impediment to their sustainable use.
Conservation programs are lacking, especially in developing countries where most of the world’s remaining breeds reside and where the risk of loss of livestock genetic resources is greatest

02. Why do a few specialized ‘European’ breeds of farm animals dominate?

In pursuit of quick wins to increase productivity to meet demand, developing countries over the last half century have imported specialized, high-producing breeds, such as the black-and-white Holstein-Friesian dairy cow.
Aggressive promotion by breeding companies of the North.
Subsidized importation, usually through development assistance.
Exotic breeds have been imported into developing countries without adequate information on the robustness/hardiness/appropriateness of the native breeds the imports have been supplanting.

03. How are the exotic imports faring in their various new locales in developing countries?
There are local niches where exotic breeds have proved productive. For example, Holstein-Friesian cows have done well in the East African highlands, which have temperate climate and adequate feed resources. However, the imports have been unable to cope with the disease, heat, humidity, scarce and poor-quality feed in many developing-country environments. Their inappropriateness for these stressful environments has tended to be discovered only after they have been widely used and have significantly ‘diluted’ the local gene pool, leaving local farmers without their traditional hardy animals.

04. Why can’t we save all domesticated livestock breeds and populations?
Saving all existing livestock breeds around the world would require considerable investment. Fortunately, some specialized breeds in developed countries are currently safe or relatively safe because they remain popular with local communities and thus are supported by market forces. With globalization and ease of movement of traded commodities, there is increasing risk that fewer and fewer breeds will be supported this way. Many local traditional breeds support the livelihoods of the world’s poor livestock keepers in developing countries. While these native breeds are threatened by rapid changes occurring in the livestock production systems of poor countries, these countries lack the resources to conserve all their traditional native stock.

05. Why is genetic diversity important in livestock?
Diversity is the basic ingredient for improving productivity, product quality and adaptation to meet different needs. It offers farmers and breeders the options needed to make adjustments to new market needs or to respond to changes in the production environment. A disease outbreak that wipes out a particular (susceptible) genetic type presents a greater risk in ‘monoculture’ (single-breed) production systems than it does in multi-breed systems. In other words, livestock diversity can help people cope with adversity while also providing prospects for livestock improvements. Changes in livestock production across the developing world, as well as an unpredictable future, require that these genetic options be safeguarded. It is particularly important to conserve livestock genetic resources because the ancestors of most of our existing livestock species no longer exist; crop breeding, on the other hand, has benefited enormously by being able to harness genes from the wild ancestors of our major crop plants.

06. Can’t we just recreate desired traits via genetic engineering if necessary?
This will probably be technically feasible in the future for many production traits of interest in our livestock. And that is exactly why we need to have the diversity from which ‘new animal types’ could be created – whether through genetic engineering or conventional breeding (acceptability and costs, among others, will determine which ‘creation avenue’ is employed). Importantly, we do not know which traits we will need in future and which of the present breeds posses the requisite genes. Thus, as we develop technology and tools to conserve livestock genetic resources, we must also ensure that we have access to the raw materials—the livestock and/or their germplasm.

07. Doesn’t industrialized agriculture obviate the need for such diversity?
As has happened in crop agriculture, industrialized livestock systems are typically characterized by a handful of specialized ‘breed types’. The chicken and pig industries have a few parental lines that form the basis of commercial chickens and pigs around the world. An outbreak of a disease to which these lines are susceptible could wipe out most of these animals, with disastrous global impacts. Thus, it is in the interests of both the public and private sectors to safeguard diversity in livestock as source of future options.

08. How is foreign investment reshaping local livestock practices?

Direct foreign investment finances breeding companies that introduce foreign breeds.
The ‘supermarket revolution’, which is driven in many countries by foreign direct investment, is impacting livestock as well as crop agriculture in significant ways:

    o Standards required for food products sold in supermarkets influence such things as product quality, size uniformity and timing of delivery.
    o The production volume needed to meet these food standards make it difficult for poor smallholders to participate in the supermarket revolution.
    o Contract-farming provides avenues for a few, well-informed and/or better-endowed farmers to participate in this revolution, sometimes through cooperatives.
   o But most smallholders are left out in this process.

09.   Do developed-world genebanks already hold some of this diversity material?
Developed-world genebanks hold very little livestock germplasm from developing countries—just a few breeds they may have imported for experimental evaluation. The major global flow of livestock genetic material has been from North to South. Currently, the fastest and most effective way for the North to help stem livestock biodiversity losses is to assist developing nations in establishing capacity to save their endangered native breeds. It is not good enough for Southern countries to depend on the North to be custodians of their livestock genetic material. The greatest livestock diversity remaining in the world is in the South and Northern countries are not highly interested in these breeds.

10.   Are rare breeds going to end up being preserved by hobbyists or organic enthusiasts?
In the developed world, there are examples of livestock breeds being preserved by livestock hobbyists or enthusiasts. In the developing world, most livestock owners are poor and the number of breeds needing attention is too large to be addressed by a few rich farmers. Alternative and substantive actions are required.

11.   How important is livestock production to developing world development?
Worldwide, one billion people are involved in animal farming and domestic animals supply 30 per cent of total human requirements for food and agriculture. In developing countries, 70 per cent of the rural poor depend on livestock as an important part of their livelihoods and livestock account for some 30 per cent of agricultural gross domestic product, a figure expected to rise to 40 per cent by the year 2030. Currently, more than 600 million rural poor people rely on livestock for their livelihoods. (Sixty-three per cent of the developing world’s total population live in rural areas, including 75 per cent of the 1.2 billion people trapped in extreme poverty; of these 900 million rural poor, some 70 per cent, or 630 million, raise livestock as part of their livelihoods.) The developing-world’s large and rapidly growing livestock markets make livestock production an income-generating opportunity similar to horticulture and other high-value agricultural commodities. The advantage of the livestock markets is that they are largely domestic and thus require no export infrastructure. Finally, livestock is what poor farmers know how to produce, and they have access to feed and other resources to produce it competitively.

12. Does livestock production still offer a pathway out of poverty?
Yes. The growing livestock markets and expanding post-production value addition are providing jobs and incomes at many levels. Increasing animal production also of course keeps down critical food prices for the urban poor.

13. Is another answer to simply scale back the use of livestock in general by reducing demand in the developed world while stopping demand before it starts in developing countries?
The livestock revolution is demand-driven. As consumers become more urbanized and their incomes grow, as they have in much of Asia and Latin America, their demand for animal products grows markedly. We expect that the developing world will double their consumption of animal products in the next 20 years. Livestock production growth to meet the growing market demand has to rely on the same or shrinking land, water and other natural resources. What we need are dramatic productivity increases. Policies will play a key role in shaping what happens in different parts of the world. If polices enforce more environmentally neutral production systems, this could lead to higher prices, particularly in the developed countries, which use intensive systems heavily reliant on external inputs and energy.

14. How will the ‘supermarket revolution’ take hold in the developing world and what impact this will have on livestock production?
Supermarkets will impose stringent requirements on production of crops and livestock foods, particularly in terms of homogeneous large volumes and food safety conditions. This can make it increasingly difficult for smallholders to participate in these modern commodity chains. Important developments in terms of organizing smallholders for collective action are critical and are being established by agribusinesses and non-governmental organizations (e.g. contract-farming, vertical integration, cooperatives). Large-scale production units will continue to grow and can be developed in pro-poor ways by maximizing employment in poor areas that have resources suitable for animal production. For example, large-scale dairy or feedlot operations may contract forage production to small-scale farmers.

15. Is the goal of saving diversity simply to boost the potential of alternatives to industrial animal husbandry, such as crop-livestock systems?
No, it is to provide options for the world. Even industrial systems will need animal genetic resources if significant shocks to the system happen, e.g. ban on antibiotics, climate change causing higher temperatures in certain regions and the spread of diseases from the tropics to the temperate world.

16. Why is it important to boost crop-livestock systems?
Boosting crop-livestock production is the best way to sustain agricultural systems in large parts of the developing world. There are big inefficiencies in these systems that can be addressed with technology, better training and knowledge sharing.

17. How far along with ‘landscape-livestock genomics’ are you? Is there even the beginnings of a map? When do you expect such a thing might be available?
The aim of landscape genomics is to learn from the co-evolution of livestock and their production systems and use the knowledge gained to better match different breeds with production circumstances. The approach employs molecular genetic tools to understand the genetic composition of livestock at the population level, using specified genetic regions (‘signatures of selection’) that appear targeted by key influencing factors in that environment. By overlaying this information with other sets of information such as agro-ecological maps, one can see what genetic material are candidates for use in which parts of the globe.
Where are we today? Independent of the genomics work, much progress is being made in modelling and mapping livestock systems, including how they are evolving in response to climate change. Development of tools for rapidly mapping genetic composition of populations is also advancing. Over the next 5 years, we plan to have made significant advances in this area and to have applied landscape genomics (even at a pilot scale) in the humid zone of West Africa, focusing on cattle populations.

18. What do you hope to do next?
Urgent actions include:

With FAO and other collaborators, sensitize the global community about the value of conserving livestock genetic resources and mobilize greater support for saving the remaining livestock diversity in the developing world.
Focus on breeds already at risk, especially those in the FAO ‘critical list’.
Establish gene banks: Ex situ conservation (in gene banks) is seen as the fastest way to save some of these breeds, even if characterization information is inadequate or absent – a special session at the global conference in Interlaken (Switzerland) on 3 September 2007 discussed strategies to move this forward.
Facilitate the sharing of genetic material among developing countries, especially where there is evidence that a breed in one country holds promise for another, which will serve as long-term insurance against losses arising from droughts, civil conflicts, and other disasters.
Develop re-stocking strategies to ensure that appropriate breeds are used in the aftermath of disasters.
Develop pro-poor breeding strategies appropriate for low-input livestock production systems and infrastructure levels available in developing countries.
Identify factors that constrain competitiveness of indigenous breeds.

A ‘livestock meltdown’ is occurring as hardy African, Asian and Latin American farm animals face extinction

Posted on September 3, 2007 by ILRIComms

Scientists Call for Rapid Establishment of Livestock Genebanks To Conserve Indigenous Breeds

With the world’s first global inventory of farm animals showing many breeds of African, Asian, and Latin American livestock at risk of extinction, scientists from the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) today called for the rapid establishment of genebanks to conserve the sperm and ovaries of key animals critical for the global population’s future survival.

An over-reliance on just a few breeds of a handful of farm animal species, such as high-milk-yielding Holstein-Friesian cows, egg-laying White Leghorn chickens, and fast-growing Large White pigs, is causing the loss of an average of one livestock breed every month according to a recently released report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The black-and-white Holstein-Friesian dairy cow, for example, is now found in 128 countries and in all regions of the world. An astonishing 90 percent of cattle in industrialized countries come from only six very tightly defined breeds.

The report, “The State of the World’s Animal Genetic Resources,” compiled by FAO, with contributions by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and other research groups, surveyed farm animals in 169 countries. Nearly 70 percent of the entire world’s remaining unique livestock breeds are found in developing countries, according to the report, which was presented to over 300 policy makers, scientists, breeders, and livestock keepers at the First International Technical Conference on Animal Genetic Resources, held in Interlaken, Switzerland, from 3-7 September 2007.

“Valuable breeds are disappearing at an alarming rate,” said Carlos Seré, Director General of ILRI. “In many cases we will not even know the true value of an existing breed until it’s already gone. This is why we need to act now to conserve what’s left by putting them in genebanks.”

In a keynote speech at the scientific forum on the opening day of the Interlaken conference, Seré called for the rapid establishment of genebanks in Africa as one of four practical steps to better characterize, use, and conserve the genetic basis of farm animals for the livestock production systems around the world.

“This is a major step in the right direction,” said Seré. “The international community is beginning to appreciate the seriousness of this loss of livestock genetic diversity. FAO is leading inter-governmental processes to better manage these resources. These negotiations will take time to bear fruit. Meanwhile, some activities can be started now to help save breeds that are most at risk.”

ILRI, whose mission is poverty reduction through livestock research for development, helps countries and regions save their specially adapted breeds for future food security, environmental sustainability, and human development.

Industrialized countries built their economies significantly through livestock production and there is no indication that developing countries will be any different. Worldwide today, one billion people are involved in animal farming and 70 percent of the rural poor depend on livestock as an important part of their livelihoods. “For the foreseeable future,” says Seré, “farm animals will continue to create means for hundreds of millions of people to escape absolute poverty.”

In recent years, many of the world’s smallholder farmers abandoned their traditional animals in favor of higher yielding stock imported from Europe and the US. For example, in northern Vietnam, local breeds comprised 72 percent of the sow population in 1994, and within eight years, this had dropped to just 26 percent. Of the country’s fourteen local pig breeds, five are now vulnerable, two are in critical state, and three are facing extinction.

Scientists predict that Uganda’s indigenous Ankole cattle—famous for their graceful and gigantic horns—could face extinction within 50 years because they are being rapidly supplanted by Holstein-Friesians, which produce much more milk. During a recent drought, some farmers that had kept their hardy Ankole were able to walk them long distances to water sources while those who had traded the Ankole for imported breeds lost their entire herds.

Seré notes that exotic animal breeds offer short-term benefits to their owners because they promise high volumes of meat, milk, or eggs, but he warned that they also pose a high risk because many of these breeds cannot cope with unpredictable fluctuations in the environment or disease outbreaks when introduced into more demanding environments in the developing world.

Cryo-banking Sperm and Eggs
Scientists and conservationists alike agree that we can’t save all livestock populations. But ILRI has helped lay the groundwork for prioritizing livestock conservation efforts in developing regions. Over the past six years, it has built a detailed database, called the Domestic Animal Genetic Resources Information System (DAGRIS), containing research-based information on the distribution, characteristics, and status of 669 breeds of cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and chickens indigenous to Africa and Asia.

Seré proposes acceleration of four practical steps to better manage farm animal genetic resources.

1.) A first strategy is to encourage farmers to keep genetic diversity “on the hoof,” which means maintaining a variety of indigenous breeds on farms. In his speech, Seré called for the use of market-incentives and good public policy that make it in the farmer’s self-interest to maintain diversity.
2.) Another way to encourage “keeping it on the hoof,” Seré said, is by allowing greater mobility of livestock breeds across national borders. When it comes to livestock, farmers have to “move it or lose it,” he said. Wider distribution of breeds and access to them makes it less likely that particular breeds and populations will be wiped out by fluctuations in the market, civil strife, natural disasters, or disease outbreaks.
3.) The third approach that Seré is championing is a longer term one with great future potential for resource-poor farmers. It goes by the name of “landscape genomics” and it combines advanced genomic and geographical mapping techniques to predict which breeds are best suited to which environments and circumstances around the world.
4.) But for landscape genomics—or any of the other approaches—to work, of course, scientists will need a wide variety of livestock genetic diversity to work with. For this reason, the fourth approach Seré is advocating is long-term insurance to “put some in the bank,” by establishing genebanks to store semen, eggs, and embryos of farm animals.

“In the US, Europe, China, India, and South America, there are well-established genebanks actively preserving regional livestock diversity,” said Seré. “Sadly, Africa has been left wanting and that absence is sorely felt right now because this is one of the regions with the richest remaining diversity and is likely to be a hotspot of breed losses in this century.”

But setting up genebanks is a first important step towards a long-term insurance policy for livestock. Seré noted that genebanks by themselves are not the only answer to conservation, particularly if they end up becoming “stamp collections” that are never used.

“Individual countries are already conserving their unique animal genetic resources. The international community needs to step forward in support,” said Seré. “We support FAO’s call to action and the CGIAR stands ready to assist the international community in putting these words into action.”

Related information:

What Makes Livestock Conservation So Different from Plant Conservation?

North-to-South Livestock Gene Flows Crowd out Local Breeds

Livestock breeds face ‘meltdown’ (BBC News)

Visit the online press room for further information and a series of short films and high-quality images of the third world’s unique farm animal breeds.

Protecting breeds for people

Posted on September 2, 2007 by ILRIComms

Animal Genetic Resources Are a Key Tool for Coping with Change in the Livestock Sector

Livestock are ubiquitous in the developing world. The ‘big five’—cattle, sheep, goats, poultry and pigs—as well as 9 other popular farm animals and 26 or so more specialized species are raised by more than half a billion people either on pastoral rangelands by nomadic herders, or on mixed farms by smallholders who raise crops along with livestock, or in peri-urban areas by people who raise a few animals in their backyards. All of these small-scale livestock enterprises matter to developing-country governments because livestock account for some 30 per cent of their agricultural gross domestic product, a figure expected to rise to 40 per cent by the year 2030.

The diverse livestock production systems, like most crop production systems, are changing in response to globalization, urbanization, environmental degradation, climate change and science and technology. But the fastest changes are occurring within the livestock systems. That’s because the developing world’s rising human populations and household incomes are causing demand for milk, meat, eggs and other livestock foods to soar. As one would expect, livestock markets are growing and changing to serve that growing demand. What’s less appreciated are the changes being wrought by many of the billion-plus small-scale livestock keepers and sellers of the developing world who are changing the way they do business to help meet that growing demand.

The rate of change within the livestock sector is so rapid that many local populations of livestock developed by small-scale farmers over millennia no longer have time to evolve adaptations to their new circumstances or the new needs of their owners. They are simply dying out, and at unprecedented and accelerating rates. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that on average a breed disappears every month and that 20 per cent of our uniquely adapted breeds of domestic animals are at risk of extinction.

Over the last 150 years, farmers in industrialized countries supplanted their indigenous farm animals with a few high-producing breeds of a few species (chickens, pigs, cattle) suited to highly intensified production systems. The result is that 70 per cent of the world’s known livestock genetic diversity now resides on small farms and in remote regions of developing countries. With all the challenges facing developing countries and their one billion people living on less than a dollar a day, the question arises as to what immediate practical and cost-effective steps could be taken to preserve the wealth of their livestock genetic diversity.

From a research viewpoint, it’s clear that if we’re going to manage the world’s remaining livestock genetic resources well, we’ll have to characterize the remaining populations to decide which are worth saving and why, we’ll have to find ways of broadening use of those populations deemed useful, and we’ll have to conserve the most important livestock genetic diversity for possible future use—by poor and rich farmers alike.

From a political viewpoint, we’ll need new and appropriate institutional and policy frameworks, as well as lots of policy discussions, to find ways to strengthen national and international programs that support the conservation of livestock biodiversity.

While the political issues are being discussed at length at national and inter-governmental fora, four practical things can be started immediately to ensure that the world’s remaining livestock biodiversity is conserved for future generations.

(1) Keep it on the hoof.
Give local farmers and communities incentives for maintaining local livestock breeds by, for example, improving access by poor farmers and herders to markets, perhaps including niche markets, where they can sell their traditional livestock products.

(2) Move it or lose it.
Encourage safe movements of livestock populations within and between countries, regions and continents to widen global access, use and conservation of farm animal genetic resources.

(3) Match breeds with environments.
Optimize livestock production by expertly matching livestock genotypes with farmer ambitions, fast-changing environments and specific natural resources, production systems and socio-economic circumstances.

(4) Put some in the bank.
Freeze semen, embryos and tissues of local breeds and store them indefinitely to protect indigenous livestock germplasm against extinction due to the on-going declines in livestock diversity and to serve as long-term insurance against catastrophic losses due to wars, droughts, famines and other future shocks.

How science can help
It’s clear that most of the developing world’s indigenous livestock populations will not be able to adapt in time to their rapidly changing environments and circumstances; we’ll need new strategies and interventions to improve our conservation and husbandry of these resources. It’s also clear that advances in several scientific fields promise to give rise to those innovations.

On-going breakthroughs in livestock reproductive technologies and functional genomics, for example, as well as in the information fields of bioinformatics and spatial analysis, are being systematically marshaled for the first time to address this challenge.. And policy and agricultural systems analysts are today articulating more judicious thinking about the production and funding of global public goods.

Finally, whereas societies and countries tend to differ in their short-term interests in livestock production, their long-term interests—such as learning how to cope with unforeseen changes in livestock production systems and their environments—tend to converge. This creates real opportunities for international scientific, environmental and aid agencies to work with developing countries in collective action to conserve the world’s remaining livestock genetic diversity.

Visit the online press room for further information and a series of short films and high-quality images of the third world’s unique farm animal breeds.

Renewed invitation! Join our e-consultation on livestock research in Asia – deadline 31 August

Posted on August 29, 2007 by ILRIComms

Over the next few months, ILRI will be facilitating the development of an ‘Action Plan for Pro-Poor Livestock Research for Sustainable Development in South and South East Asia’ and invite you to contribute your views on livestock research in Asia

Approximately 300 million poor people in Asia depend to some extent on livestock for their livelihoods. The livestock sector in Asia is undergoing unprecedented rapid and dynamic change which presents huge opportunities for improvement in livestock-related livelihoods as well as posing a number of challenges to poor livestock keepers. Rapidly growing demand for livestock products are creating new opportunities for poor livestock keepers, but changes in processing and retailing – such as the supermarket revolution – increased concerns about environmental impacts of livestock production, and new and emerging diseases could threaten the access of poor livestock keepers to these opportunities. Coupled with concern that much past livestock research has not contributed to a reduction in poverty in many parts of Asia, now is the time to take a fresh look at how livestock research can contribute to poverty reduction.

In the coming months ILRI will be facilitating the development of an Action Plan for Pro-Poor Livestock Research for Sustainable Development in South Asia and South East Asia. As part of this process ILRI will be conducting an electronic ‘Challenge Dialogue’ in which stakeholders from all areas of livestock research and development will be invited to put forward their views.

Challenge Dialogue: a new kind of consultation

A ‘Challenge Dialogue’ is a disciplined process of defining a specific challenge, engaging diverse stakeholders in a productive conversation focused on co-creating a solution, and taking action towards the solution.

It is a proven vehicle for taking groups of 10-100 people through a structured conversation over several months focused on developing alignment and agreement around a plan for solving complex tasks.

‘Challenge Dialogue’ is particularly useful when faced with a significant opportunity or problem to be solved, when you need to bring people together that don’t normally work as a team and get them collaborating quickly and effectively, and you want to move to action within a defined timeframe.

Patti Kristjanson, ILRI’s Innovation Works leader says ‘The idea behind the Challenge Dialogue is that we involve as many diverse participants as possible and engage them in a bigger conversation. Everyone’s opinions are encouraged – thus we get diversity of views and a free flow of innovative ideas.

Iain Wright, ILRI’s representative in Asia said ‘we want to engage in dialogue with anyone who has views to share in what livestock research is needed, what new ways of working are required and what partnerships need to be developed in South Asia and South East Asia – and most importantly how that research can benefit the poor.

‘It’s important that we get the views of not only the research community, but also government departments, development agencies, donors, NGOs, the private sector and particularly representatives of farmers’ organizations.

‘We want the Action Plan to help all organizations involved in livestock research for development to ensure that their activities can have an impact on poverty reduction,’ said Wright.

Following the electronic consultation, two workshops will be organized to draft the Action plans, which will then be presented for final discussion at a meeting of representatives of key stakeholders in Beijing in early December, at the time of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) Annual General Meeting.

Download the Challenge Dialogue paper: http://192.156.137.110/ILRIPubAware/Uploaded%20Files/2007824629490.Challenge%20Paper%20Asia%20.pdf

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Better lives through livestock

Category Archives: Asia