Future Sustainability – the Role of livestock in the Sustainable Development Goals
2015 is the year when sustainability is at the forefront of international attention – with a series of major new initiatives on agriculture, climate change, and sustainable development goals. Each one of these signal transformative changes in policy, action, and research.
Knowledge, evidence, and science will play central roles in each of these arenas.
What new knowledge is needed? What is the role of livestock and researchers in these processes? How should knowledge be produced to inform, support, and guide them?
There is now a broad appreciation that the production of socially-robust knowledge requires new forms of engagement between science, the community that undertakes it, and society.
Science itself is being transformed by new expectations from arenas, like the SDGs, for new ways of connecting and communicating what we know to what we do.
The SDGs are set to begin in 2016 with a timeline to 2030, and achieving the targets laid out requires the best available evidence-base from both the natural and social sciences. The research community is charged with making key global sustainability targets measurable, quantifiable, and evidence-based.
Integrated targets for sustainability require integrated science that cuts across disciplinary boundaries to bring together the various dimensions of sustainability. How science and the changing role of the scientist fits into global targets and goals on sustainability is an important issue. Let’s narrow our scope to the livestock.
Which role can livestock play for SDGs?
Depending on the objectives stated by FAO, livestock can play a pivotal role in integrated agricultural system, particularly in eco-friendly farming, where livestock is the principal contributor of manure.
The role of livestock is more broadly in food security
Referring to food security and nutrition, evidence from parts of the Sahel shows that households with livestock often were less vulnerable to severe food insecurity than strictly crop-based systems in the Sahel, because the farmer could sell off livestock to buy cereals during extreme weather events. In Kenya for example, there have been several advances in technologies for milk storage, processing and storage of animal products (yogurts, ghee, dried meats etc) that improve nutritional impacts especially for children (e.g., The BMGF-funded East Africa Smallholder Dairy Program).
Need for engagement in livestock for the sustainable development
The increased attention to ‘engagement’ in sustainable development has resulted in a greater focus on holistic approach to address the high demand for food in long term basis while protecting our environment. To achieve this, the livestock as other sectors are important resources for the sustainable development goals (SDGs). Positioning the Livestock in such roles is consistent with calls for treating all agriculture sectors as ingredients capable of participating in changing and improving the agricultural system as the whole. The precondition of the sustainable livestock in particular and the agriculture general is many folds and needs multi-sectoral approaches, engagement of youth, farmers with local know-how and researchers as well; it is why some environmental education researchers emphasize not only the intellectual engagement of people in socio-agro-ecological issues, but also their emotional engagement. In this regards, I do share the perception of (Fajersson, 2014) who wrote :“ We need to re-create a great interest in our young and older students and faculty in international animal agriculture in order to feed the future, shake them up a bit to realize that although today we can do so much over the internet, by mobile phone and modeling etc., there is now more than ever opportunities to go out there and contribute to feeding the world”. In the same direction (Dash, 2014) in UN Africa Renewal, declared: “ Micro and small enterprises can really bring big change in agricultural and other sectors. What is needed is mentoring and EDP training programme for the youth to identify business opportunities in particular area and translate these resources into small business by the Government”.
To Build–up a sustainable livestock, appropriate research methodologies and methods are needed urgently; these require these require research, training, information, extension services, capacity building, farmer empowerment and related infrastructure.
To sum-up my contribution, I do think the sustainable livestock needs an holistic approach in order to:
- support the development of relevant sector policy and strategy, regulatory and institutional arrangements;
- enhance the delivery of livestock inputs and services to livestock farmers; improving marketing infrastructure and marketing systems for livestock and livestock products; strengthening the capacity of livestock farming communities and the private sector; and strengthening private and public institutions to provide services to the livestock sector;
- contribute towards increasing income, food and nutrition security amongst those involved in livestock farming through increasing livestock productivity;
- promote changes in cultural and behavioural attitudes to ensure that livestock assets contribute positively to household nutritional security;
- improve the capacity of national animal health services to plan, implement, monitor and evaluate the strategic control of epizootic diseases;
- promote the growth and deployment of public and private animal health service providers, livestock Development Support Services;
- strengthen community-based animal health services;
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Promote and implement rangeland regeneration and sustainable grazing management practices Investment in addressing the issues of the lack of water availability in these areas (development/rehabilitation of water points, small scale irrigation, protection of natural water sources).
In conclusion building New Alliance around the world could be a sustainable way to share know-how and commitment to achieve sustained and inclusive agricultural growth for the SDGs.
References
http://agrilinks.org/agexchange/
Norbert TCHOUAFFE