6.1. Background
6.2. Regional Importance
6.3. Livestock Research in sub-Saharan Africa
Livestock and their products contribute about 19% to the total value of production of agriculture, forestry and fisheries in developing countries. In sub-Saharan Africa their share amounts to 15%, in Asia to 17%, in West Asia-North Africa to 25% and in Latin America and the Caribbean to 25 %. However, as previously noted (Section 4.6), these figures under-estimate the substantial contribution that livestock frequently make to crop production through draught power and manure.
Livestock products provide 6% of calorie intake and 19% of dietary protein consumed in developing countries. Animal products are the only reliable sources of Vitamin B12, zinc and iron. Meat and milk are highly income-elastic products. Their consumption increases with incomes and urbanization. Given economic growth and technological improvements in developing countries, livestock's contribution to agricultural production can therefore be expected to increase.
Domestic animals enhance the economic viability and sustainability of farming systems. They diversify production and management options, increase total farm production and income, provide year-round employment, and provide insurance in times of need. Sales of livestock products provide funds for purchasing critically needed crop inputs and for financing farm investments. Livestock often form the major capital reserve of farming households.
Among domestic livestock species, ruminants have special importance because they convert into edible products crop residues, byproducts, weeds and other biomass that cannot be directly consumed as food by humans. Ruminants provide the only practical means for using vast areas of natural grasslands in regions where low, unreliable or seasonally limited rainfall combined with poor, acid soils make crop production impractical. In crop producing regions, traction raises crop productivity while manure enriches the soil. In addition, ruminants provide farmers with the economic incentive required to plant nitrogen-fixing forage crops and maintain pastures in crop rotations, which reduce erosion, conserve soil moisture and enhance soil fertility. The key to enhancing these positive aspects of livestock production is good management. It should also be noted that poor management, and especially overstocking, can cause degradation. Population growth in semi-arid rangeland areas is exacerbating these problems. Expansion of grasslands is the major factor that leads to deforestation in Latin America and the Caribbean.
In general, the returns from smallholder livestock development projects in developing countries have been low (World Bank, 1985). This further highlighted the need for research to expand the knowledge base for more effective livestock development planning in the future. Although valuable progress has been made, to date pay offs from CGIAR investments in livestock research have been slow to materialize.
Cattle are especially important in Latin America and the Caribbean, and in the warm semi-arid tropics and cool tropics of sub-Saharan Africa and India (for milk). Sheep and/or goats are important in West Asia-North Africa, East and Southern Africa, semi-arid West Africa and temperate South America. Although small ruminants provide only a small proportion of the global production of meat and milk, the aggregate data mask their importance in some regions. It is estimated that they provide 30% of the meat consumed in West Asia-North Africa and 20% of that consumed in sub-Saharan Africa. Small ruminants are also important generators of cash income.
The first major thrust of the CGIAR System's research programme on improving ruminant production has been to enhance nutrition through improved management practices and the development of better pastures, forages, and other feed sources. Inadequate year-round feed supply is the major constraint to ruminant production in many areas of Latin America a the Caribbean, West Asia-North Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa.
The second major research thrust is to control ruminant diseases, particularly tsetse-transmitted trypanosomiasis, which is a major constraint in large parts of sub-Saharan Africa, and a form of theileriosis. East Coast fever, a major constraint in East and Southern Africa. This research is of a basic and strategic nature. Progress being made in understanding the biology of these diseases, the nature of host defence mechanisms and novel means of vaccination provides a basis for developing improved methods of control for other economically important livestock diseases worldwide.
The CGIAR has focused its research on the most important ruminants in developing countries, i.e. cattle, sheep and goats and on sub-Saharan Africa, which accounts for more than two-thirds of the CGIAR's resources for livestock research. However, although located in sub-Saharan Africa, ILRAD has a worldwide mandate for animal disease research. About 21% of CGIAR investment in livestock research is allocated to CIAT in Latin America and the Caribbean, for pasture improvement research, and 11% to ICARDA in West Asia-North Africa, for the improvement of forage production systems. In general, CGIAR-supported livestock research has not yet led to significant farm-level productivity increases, but CIAT's technologies for pasture improvement on the acid soils of Latin America and the Caribbean are gradually being adopted, and ILRAD may be on the verge of a breakthrough with recent progress in the development of new vaccines to provide immunity to theileriosis.
TAC has recognized the importance of the domesticated buffalo in areas to which it is climatically adapted. However, since 85% of buffalo are found in only five countries of Asia, TAC's position to date has been that the research needs for this species could best be met through regional efforts. Similarly, TAC has recognized the importance of the camel in arid and semi-arid environments. Again, TAC feels that the research needs for these species could best be met through network activities or by regional institutions. TAC considers that the CGIAR has no comparative advantage to initiate activities on buffalo or camel research.
Poultry and swine account for almost half the monetary and nutritive value of livestock in developing countries. However. TAC has not considered their research needs to be of sufficiently high priority to justify their inclusion in the form of commodity improvement programmes in CGIAR activities. Evidence from Asia and from Latin America and the Caribbean indicates that, as the demand for chicken and pigmeat increases, more intensive production systems are adopted, and technology from developed and other developing countries is rapidly and effectively applied in these systems. Both the poultry and pig sectors also benefit substantially from private sector research. However, consideration needs to be given to the production of feed crops to meet the rapid growth of demand caused by the expansion of poultry and swine production as population and urbanization increase in the next 20 to 30 years.
Demand for livestock products is rising rapidly in response to urbanization, population growth and income gains, while yields of both meat and milk are low compared with those of developed countries. Low productivity is associated with a number of interacting factors: poor nutrition and acute seasonal feed deficiencies, limited availability of water in arid and semi-arid areas, poor management, disease, and low genetic potential as feed and health constraints are removed. In some regions, sub-Saharan Africa in particular, the low productivity of cattle may also result from producers placing greater value on the number of animals owned than on their output of meat or milk, since animals are a means of storing wealth for future expenditures and as an insurance against drought. Overall, there is a significant need for research to increase ruminant production in developing countries.
6.3.1. Feed Supply
6.3.2. Animal Health
6.3.3. Genetics
6.3.4. Sustainable Production Systems
As already noted, CGIAR efforts in livestock research have focused on sub-Saharan Africa. At present, livestock production systems in this region are predominantly subsistence oriented, and concentrated in areas that are tsetse free or only lightly infested. The majority of livestock is found on mixed smallholder farms, which account for approximately 60% of the region's ruminant animal units. The productivity of livestock in terms of milk and meat in sub-Saharan Africa is the lowest of any world region. Nonetheless, it has been amply demonstrated that sub-Saharan Africa can produce meat and milk at prices that are competitive with imports, provided that markets are not severely disrupted by dumping, artificial currency exchange rates, and other macroeconomic distortions.
Milk accounts for 38% of the value of sub-Saharan livestock production, beef for 32%, sheep and goat meat for 15%, pigmeat for 3%, and poultry for 12%. During the past two decades, increases in production have resulted largely from the expansion of herds and flocks, rather than from improved animal productivity.
The major constraints to improved productivity are natural resource limitations; technical barriers, such as inadequate feed supply, diseases, poor genotypes and inadequate management; and socioeconomic factors, such as inadequate government policies and marketing opportunities, and the lack of infrastructure.
Despite these constraints, there appear to be substantial opportunities for increasing livestock productivity throughout the region. It is felt that sub-Saharan African products can successfully compete with other foods in local markets and with imports.
Among the region's highly diverse agroecologies, the subhumid tropics (AEZ 2), the higher rainfall areas of the semi-arid tropics (AEZ 1), and the cool tropics (AEZ 4) appear to have the greatest development potential for livestock production, particularly through integrated crop-livestock systems. In these systems, advances in dairy production, animal traction, poultry and pig production offer particularly promising opportunities for productivity and income gains. In the drier parts of the arid and semi-arid areas, pastoral systems continue to support a large number of ruminant livestock. The opportunities for technical intervention in such systems appear limited, but there is some potential for encouraging offtake through more favourable government policies, especially with regard to prices.
In the humid tropics (AEZ 3), the major stresses are pests and diseases, especially trypanosomiasis and dermatophilosis. Where pastures are established, the control of weeds presents a special difficulty. These problems are likely to constrain production in this zone, at least in the short term.
Cattle will continue as the predominant source of meat, milk and traction in sub-Saharan Africa. The importance of small ruminants, poultry and pigs is expected to increase rapidly during the next two decades. Camels will remain important in arid areas, donkeys and horses in the cool tropics, and wildlife for tourism and game/bush meat in arid and semi-arid zones.
CGIAR efforts should focus on four principal research areas: feed supply, animal health, genetics, and sustainable production systems, particularly for the warm subhumid, warm semi-arid and highland (cool tropics) zones.
Highest priority should be given to improving the quality of animal feed and its year-round availability. To support the intensification and spread of smallholder mixed crop-livestock farming systems, research on the production and feed value of forages, multipurpose trees, crop residues, cereals, root crops, grain legumes and less conventional feeds is needed. Greater efforts are required to enhance crop-livestock interactions. For example, as shortage of feed is the major constraint to increasing livestock productivity, the latter could benefit substantially from an increase in crop productivity.
The vector-borne diseases, trypanosomiasis, theileriosis, cowdriosis, babesiosis, anaplasmosis, and dermatophilosis, as a group constitute the most serious constraint to increased animal production in sub-Saharan Africa. Existing chemical control methods are often too costly for widespread adoption, and are also unsustainable due to the development of resistance to drugs and pesticides. Cost considerations deter the development, testing, licensing and introduction of new chemical products for use in sub-Saharan Africa. Continued strategic research on host-parasite relationships and control methods is necessary to provide strategies for overcoming the reduced productivity caused by this complex of diseases.
As animal agriculture systems intensify, strategic and applied research will be needed to resolve animal health problems related to intensification.
Sub-Saharan Africa has valuable indigenous livestock germplasm that needs to be identified, characterized, preserved and utilized to enhance the productivity of animals while retaining their adaptation to the region's environments. Strategic research to identify and manipulate genes that confer disease resistance, physiological adaptation to the environment, and productivity traits will grow in importance. Advances here will have global application.
Research is needed to optimize the contribution of livestock to sustainable farming systems in each agroecological zone, particularly in the warm subhumid zone where production potential is high and the tsetse fly is retreating. Farming systems research must take into account agronomic, animal production, epidemiological and ecological factors. Policy research should give particular attention to macroeconomic issues related to natural resource use and the infrastructure needed to support the efficient development of animal agriculture.
The ability of governments to establish policies that foster the development of sustainable land use systems is hampered by serious deficiencies in livestock data. Databases on livestock, organized by agroecological zone, must be improved and expanded. National governments, the development community and the CGIAR should evaluate needs and develop improved methods for surveying and analyzing the current and potential role of livestock by agroecological zone in sub-Saharan African fanning systems, especially by applying the new technologies of modelling and analysis provided by geographical information systems.
