INTEGRATED CROP-LIVESTOCK SYSTEMS FOR DEVELOPMENT (IC-LSD)
Sustainable production intensification
The Issues
There are already over 1 billion (about 15% of the human population) people hungry and living in poverty, and 75% of them as well as other less poor but vulnerable people live in rural areas and depend on farming for their livelihoods, with the majority relying on small scale crop-livestock systems, including those that are integrated with long haul pastoral systems. Food (primary and secondary), feed, fibre and fuel needs must be met from agriculture of a still expanding population that is expected to grow from the current 6.7 billion to some 9.2 billion by 2050 while available land for expansion of agriculture will become economically and environmentally unattractive.
The Future
To meet the food needs of the population in 2050, production will have to expand by 70% compared to what it was in 2000. It is expected that 90% of the expansion will be through production intensification (i.e., increase in output per unit area), and 10% will be from area expansion mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. At the same time there is a shift to increased consumption of meat and livestock products as living conditions of people improve, increasing additionally the stress on the agricultural resource base.
The Challenge
For this reason the environmental footprint of crop as well as of livestock production has to be reduced to improve sustainability. This poses both a development challenge as well as opportunities for livestock producers in crop-livestock systems to contribute to both overall food security and alleviation of their poverty as well as of non-agricultural rural population due to increasing employment opportunities in the input supply and output value chains.
The Way Ahead
In light of the above, participants of the Sete Lagoas consultation on integrated crop-livestock-tree systems for sustainable development (IC-LSD), organised by FAO, IFAD, EMBRAPA, IICA, ILRI and other stakeholders, reached consensus – the Sete Lagoas consensus -- that small and medium scale farmers, in particular, can meaningfully benefit and contribute to food and nutritional security and sustainable development through improved production intensification, environmental quality and livelihoods. The consultation also recommended that FAO host a stakeholder website and communication platform to facilitate a shared programme of work on IC-LSD to move a better agriculture forward and specially to assist smallholder producers to harness the benefits "new forms" of integrated crop-livestock production systems.
Contacts
IC-LSD Task Force Co-Conveners
Theodor Friedrich, Plant Production and Protection Division (AGP)
Henning Steinfeld, Animal Production and Health Division (AGA)
