Towards successful, and sustainable, livestock futures worldwide

Borlaug distinguished lecture

Texas A&M University, 3 March 2015

Jimmy Smith Director General ILRI

The global livestock sector: Changes ahead

40% of agricultural GDP and growing

4 of 5 highest value global commodities are livestock

FAOSTAT 2014(values for 2012)

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net production value (Int $) billion production (MT)

Cow milk has overtaken rice

Eggs havedisplacedmaize

Per capita global kilocalorieavailability from edible animal products

Source: Herrero et al (PNAS, in press)

Gains in meat consumption in developingcountries are outpacing those of developed

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Hypothetical: Ifdeveloping-countryper capitaconsumption rateequalled that ofdeveloped countries

Milk demand and consumption levelsdiffer in developed and developing countries

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Rising demand for meat, milk and eggs is a global phenomenon . . .

. . . but demand is greatest in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa

FAO 2012Based on anticipated change in absolute tonnes of product comparing 2000 and 2030

Percentage growth in demandfor livestock products: 2000−2030

Huge increases over 2005/7 amountsof cereals, dairy and meat will be needed by 2050

From 2bn−3bntonnes cereals each year

From 664m−1bntonnes dairy each year

From 258m−460m tonnes meat each year

The global livestock sector: Opportunitiesand challenges

Opportunities: Why

The demographics of demand and supply open new, unprecedented, opportunities:

• To enable smallholders tocontinue to play central rolesin food and nutritional security

• To transform livelihoodsand rural economiesin developing countries

• To make animal agriculture more environmentally sustainable

Opportunities: Who

• 90% of animal products are produced & consumedin same country or region

• Most are producedby smallholders

• More than 70% of livestockproducts are sold informally

• 500m smallholders produce 80% of developing-worldfood

• 43% of the agriculturalworkforce is female

BMGF, FAO, ILRI

Smallholders still dominatelivestock production in many countries

Region(definition of ‘smallholder’)

% production by smallholder livestock farms

Beef Chickenmeat

Sheep/goat meat

Milk Pork Eggs

East Africa(≤ 6 milking animals)

60-90

Bangladesh(< 3ha land)

65 77 78 65 77

India(< 2ha land)

75 92 92 69 71

Vietnam (small scale)

80

Philippines(backyard)

50 35

Opportunities: How

This rising demand foranimal-source foodswill be met − one wayor another

We can meet thatdemand in economically viable, sustainable,equitable and healthyways that also reducepoverty and hunger

This requiresproactive action

Demand for livestock commodities in developing economies will be met – the only question is how

Scenario #1Meeting livestock demand byimporting livestock products

Scenario #2Meeting livestock demand by

importing livestock industrial production know-how

Scenario #3Meeting livestock demand by

transforming smallholder livestock systems

Scenario #3 is good news for rural economic transformation

Upsides of smallholder transformation

• The coming livestock transitionsand consolidations can helpmillions improve their foodproduction as well as health,livelihoods and environments

• Of the world’s 1 billion smallholderlivestock producers, some:﹣1/3 will find alternate livelihoods﹣1/3 will succeed in the market﹣1/3 could go either way

Responding:Livestock researchfor development

Trajectories of growth

• ‘Strong growth’– Intensifying and increasingly market

oriented often transforming smallholder systems

• ‘Fragile growth’– Where remoteness, marginal land

resources or agro climatic vulnerability restrict intensification

• ‘High growth with externalities’ (industrial)– Intensified livestock systems with

diverse challenges including the environment and human health

Trajectory

‘Strong growth’

Sector

Ruminant meat and milk, esp. in SSA, India− Pork in some regions

Issues

− Sustainable productivity - Market access and food safety− Zoonotic outbreaks

Opportunities

Novel approaches spanning sustainable productivity, markets, institutional and policy issues, risk analyses

‘Fragile growth’ Some smallholder andpastoral systems; little part in the production response

− Multiple endemicdiseases− Zoonoses− Adaptive capacity− Movement controls

Mostly public sector interventions, mitigating vulnerability, improving resilience

‘High growth with externalities’

Mostly monogastric− China for all commodities

− Environmental- Drug resistance− Climate impacts on new vector and pathogen dynamics− Disease scares

Modalities of operation with private sector largely established.Managing environment and health risks and consumer demand

Distinguishing opportunities

Research for development solutions

Food, equity,

environment, health

Policies, institutions and markets

- Policy development

- Foresight; trade- Livestock value

chains

Sustainable livestock systems

- Sustainable intensification

- Climate change: adaptation & mitigation- System resilience

Feed resources- Conservation &

use- Feed production- Feed utilization

Animal genetics and breeding

- Gene discovery- Genetic improvement

- Breeding strategies- conservation

Livestock – health- Vaccines &

diagnostics- Zoonoses; food

safety- Herd health

Greatest burden of zoonoses falls onone billion poor livestock keepers

Map by ILRI, from original in a report to DFID: Mapping of Poverty and Likely Zoonoses Hotspots, 2012

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2007

African swine fever:Threatens $150-billion global pig industry

Recent reports indicate ASF has moved into Belarus, Poland and Lithuania

Vaccines save lives of animals that bothincrease food security and reduce poverty

ILVAC – a global vaccine initiative

An bodytechnologies

Vaccinetechnologies

Cellulartechnologies

Diagnos ctechnologies

Genomictechnologies

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EastCoastfe

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African

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Consor aforresearch&productdevelopmentandcapacitydevelopment

PrivatesectorGALVmedCRPsNARSInter-govagencies

Improvedvaccinesanddiagnos ctools

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Infec ousdiseaseresearch:basic&applied

ILVAC–avaccinepla orm

ECF Consortium: Improved vaccines to controllethal East Coast fever infections in cattle in Africa

Annual meeting, Addis Ababa, 9-11th February 2015

African swine fever: TAMU-ILRI planned research for generating a subunit vaccine (funding still required)

• TAMU developed two candidate multivalent vaccines• The vaccines are well tolerated by piglets & stimulate robust antibody & T-cell

responses in the animals• Below left: The antibodies induced were shown to recognize the ASF virus

Studies to determine protective value of the vaccines is pending (Funding)

• Above right: Challenge with virulent Kenyan ASF virus to test vaccine efficacy will be performed in ILRI BSL2 pig unit using virulent Kenyan ASF virus isolated & characterized by ILRI

Food safety

• 90% of animal products are produced and consumed in the same region

• Over 70% of livestock productsare sold ‘informally’

• There are major opportunities toensure that milk, meat and eggs aresafe for consumption (e.g. viarisk assessments and risk- ratherthan rule-based regulations)

• ‘Intensifying’ livestock production systems bring people and animals closer together, increasing the threat of zoonotic disease outbreaks and spread

ILRI–Texas collaboration:Exporting live cattle and shoats and animal products: Ethiopia (2008)

• Risk fromproperly handledcarcasses, meatand meat productsis negligible

• Risk fromlive cattle or shoatsintroducing pathogensof concern is important

LiveGeneDelivering improved genetics to the world’s small-scale livestock keepers

TargetingGene

DiscoveryDelivering

Genetic Gains

Prioritizing geography, environment, climate and social change, traits, species, breed.

Adaptive alleles, characterization, conservation, Genome editing

Digital recording platforms. Phenotyping and farmer feedback.

Integrated data – comms, bio-repository, phenotyping, feedback, bioinformatics.

Partnerships and networks

Capacity Development

New tools allow us to look in new placesfor sources of variation – including wildlife

Comparative gene network

and sequence analysis

allows us to ask new kinds

of questions about genomes

– eg “what is different about

this (group of) species

compared to all other

mammals”

“traditional” linkage mapping requires crosses – so initial discovery

is limited to variants within a species

Cow NDama KFITRRPSLKTLQEKGLIKDQIFGSPLHTLCEREKSTVPRFVKQCIEAVEK

Cow Boran KFITRRPSLKTLQEKGLIKDQIFGSHLHTLCEREKSTVPRFVKQCIEAVEK

Human KFISRRPSLKTLQEKGLIKDQIFGSHLHTVCEREHSTVPWFVKQCIEAVEK

Pig KFITRRPSLKTLQEKGLIKDQIFGSHLHTVCERENSTVPRFVKQCIEAVEK

Chicken KFISRRPSLKTLQEKGLIKDQIFGSHLHLVCEHENSTVPQFVRQCIKAVER

Salmon KFISRRPSMKTLQEKGIIKDRVFGCHLLALCEREGTTVPKFVRQCVEAVEK

Genotype data is relatively cheap and easy to obtain: Phenotype data remains a challenge

Can we skip a generation of technology?

• Fast, light, cheap performance data harvesting.

• Cheap sensors, mobile platforms, crowd sensing…..

• Simultaneously providing management information to the farmer and performance data to the breeder.

Identify and deliver variantsassociated with adaptation

Genotyping Phenotyping

Adapted & productive livestock

Genome editing

Targeting

Data systems

Delivery systems

• 70% of production cost – FEED

• 70% of feed – CROP RESIDUES

• Potential huge demand for grain for MONOGASTRICS

• Opportunities:

– Improved crop residuequantity and quality

– Improved use of crop residueswith other feed resources

– Balancing trade offs in biomass use

– Use of sorghum and other alternatesto maize for monogastrics

Research-based livestock feed successes

Feed opportunities

• Produce more and better quality– Crop varieties with improved

residue quality/quantity– Forages

• Better use available feed– Via processing (chopping)– Feed mixtures (rations)

• Import feed into the system– From areas of surplus to deficit– Concentrates

• Potential environmental ‘win-win’

ILRI–Texas collaborations inlivestock and environment issues

• Feed the Future Innovation Labfor Small-scale Irrigation- Exploring feed options

• Use of systems models- Africa RISING- LIVES

• Research evidence forsmallholder dairying included:

﹣Risk analysis ofinformal milk marketing

﹣Employment and incomebenefits for the poor

• Business/market developmentlinks poor livestock producersand feed suppliers to moresophisticated input/output systems

﹣A dairy ‘hub’ approachhas been widely adopted

Research-based livestock market successes

Global greenhouse gas efficiencyper kilogram of animal protein produced

Large livestock production inefficiencies

in the developing world present an opportunity

Herrero et al PNAS (in press)

GHG emissions to 2050 assuming developing countries do NOT improve their efficiencies

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GHG emissions GT CO2 eq per annum assuming developed country levels remain at 1.3 kg/CO2 eqper kg milk while developing countries remain at

7.5 kg/CO2 eq per kg milk

developing

developed

GHG emissions to 2050 assuming developing countries DO improve their efficiencies

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Image credits

Slide cover:

(Left) Gond painting, 2012, by Kaushal Prasad Tekam (via Pinterest

(Middle) Untitled, by Kalam Patua (via Asia Art Archive)

(Right) Sacred cows, by Vidushini (via Novica)

Slide #11: Sacred cows, by Vidushini (via Novica)

Slide #12: Tingatinga painting (via InsideArtAfrica.com)

Slide #14: Untitled, by Kalam Patua (via Asia Art Archive)

Slide #16: Kalighat painting (via Pinterest)

The presentation has a Creative Commons licence. You are free to re-use or distribute this work, provided credit is

given to ILRI.

better lives through livestock

ilri.org

Thank you!

The presentation has a Creative Commons licence. You are free to re-use or distribute this work, provided credit is

given to ILRI.

better lives through livestock

ilri.org