I would say a more appropriate title would have been Sustainable Innovation for Agriculture and Food System. For arid pastoral areas the key to achieve the success of food security and nutrition should NOT (or cannot in my opinion) rely in the introduction of upgraded breeds of small ruminants or cattle. These livestock species are unsustainable becasue require upgraded veterinary inputs, husbandry and fodder. As unpalatable may sound for arid pastoral areas the only livestock species that can cope with the ineluctable and profound environmental changes caused by climate warming is the camel (C. dromedarius, and in high latitudes areas C. bactrianus).
This obvious fact is already happening and has been documented:
Kagunyu, A.W. & Wanjohi, J..2014. Camel rearing replacing cattle production among the Borana community in Isiolo County of Northern Kenya, as climate variability bites. Pastoralism 4: 13.
Namaalwa, J.et al., 2016 The potential of camel production in resilience building to climate variability in Karamoja, Uganda, RUFORUM Working Document Series (ISSN 1607-9345) No. 14 (1): 1027-1031. http://repository.ruforum.org
Salamula et al., 2017. Socio-economic determinants of pastoralists’ choice of camel production in Karamoja sub-region, Uganda, Pastoralism: Research, Policy and Practice 7:26.
However in many arid sub-Saharans areas such as Namibia, Botswana, northern South Africa such natural trend is impossible because of the absence of an existing indigenous camel population (and obviously of camel husbandry know-how). The problem could be solved by establishing demonstration camel breeding herds to initiate a restocking of the local pastoral people with this livestock species and to train local pastoralists on camel husbandry and production.
The "writing is on the wall" the longer we wait to act the worse it will be!
Maurizio Dioli