Abstract : International initiatives for influencing the evolution of the livestok sector worldwide
About livestock, we can distinguish three kinds of organised international initiatives for influencing the evolution of the sector worldwide:
- Projects based on an international consensus which are leaded in the framework of international organizations with some of their members states,
- International professional organisations, historicly the oldest, which gather national governments and the private sector or only professionnal organisations,
- New “influence initiatives” based on a lobbying approach gathering private actors (producers or firms) and more rarely NGOs.
8 “key factors” have been identified in evaluating the influence game in livestock production and markets at international level:
1/ The demand of products isued of livestock (meat, milk, eggs and leather) is increasing quikly for a long time. This is the main cause of the present “Livestock revolution” which is impacting the traditionnal livestock sector through intergation and industrialisation processses.
2/ The “Livestock revolution” is engaged without “ Supreme guide” meaning without international governance and more often without national policies in the sector.
3/ The increasing strong demand of products issued from livestock is so quick that tentatives for building a consensus on an international governance are unefficient today. International trade agreements drive the productions and the markets and build the leadership of few countries on the sector.
4/ The actions and speeches for reducing the consomption of meat, “against meat” or “against industrial food”, mainly from some NGOs, have a limited impact in front pf the magnitude of the demand.
5/ In the meat sector, the international leadership is moving to the American continent (USA, Canada and Brasil).
6/ Despite this trend, the role of the main international actors is not definitively fixed due to agricultural constrains, political, social en economical reasons.
7/ In the large majority of african countries, Africa representing 20 % of the world population in 2050, there is no real agricultural policies and a fortiri no policies for livestock.
8/ The Research in the livestock sector have few impacts on the “Livestock revolution”.
Lejeune Hervé