World Rural Forum - Africa
In Africa it is necessary to enhance policy frameworks for sustainable land use management in livestock farming.
It is recommended that the tool should provide guidelines on issues relevant to a sustainable intensive and extensive livestock farming system, based on animal and environmentally friendly practices, so that farmers, especially at the grassroots level, know and understand them very well in order to be able to apply them. Animal rights were also emphasised, e.g. overcrowding on production farms, the abuse of antibiotics and waste management. The rights of farmers and herders should also be taken into account. For example, in cases where nomadic pastoralists are evicted from grazing land and other cases on land tenure for small-scale livestock owners.
Considering the devastating conditions that are emerging in the environment as a consequence of climate change and greenhouse gas emissions, it is remarked that intensive livestock farming, where large flocks of animals coexist in a confined space, produce a lot of waste and this waste turns out to be dangerous for our ecosystem due to greenhouse gas emissions.
In that sense, farmers want to continue working with their livestock, but they do not want to be part of the pollution and global warming problem due to the production systems they use. Therefore, they value the possibility to further study and research this problem in order to find sustainable solutions.
A good practice in Uganda was shared by ESAFF, where family farmers are grazing dairy cows that feed and nourish the whole family and allow them to save money to spend on other basic needs. Have set up cooperatives to support families who choose to graze dairy cows.
Г-жа June Pomposo