Section One: Background

A recent multi-donor study (Livestock and the Environment) assessed the impact of livestock, both positive and negative, on the environment (de Haan, Steinfeld & Blackburn, 1997). The framework of the study (Figure 1) highlighted how a combination of the following DRIVING FORCES:

• A massive increase in demand for livestock products in developing countries, fuelled by rising incomes, urbanisation and population growth;^[1]

  and

• A rise in population causing an increase in arable land, and intensification of crop production methods;^[2]

are powering change in world animal production systems and their relationship with the environment. The study proposed that GRAZING SYSTEMS, which have been the traditional mainstay of ruminant production world wide, are being replaced^[3] by MIXED SYSTEMS where crops are integrated with livestock, and that these crop/livestock systems will in turn, be surpassed by more intensive and specialist grain-based rearing systems (INDUSTRIAL SYSTEMS) of (predominantly) pigs and poultry.

Figure 1: Environmental hotspots defined in Livestock and the Environment Study

Each system, and the pressures that are influencing the system, create their own particular environmental concerns, or "HOTSPOTS", as summarised in Figure 1. For each area of environmental concern and for the wider environmental issues the Study highlighted a number of policies that could enhance the positive and mitigate the negative effects of livestock development on the natural resource base.

Whilst the Livestock and Environment Study has contributed to our understanding of livestock impacts on the environment, it did not examine the equity aspects of livestock systems dynamics and their relationship with the environment. Livestock are a significant component of the livelihoods of many of the world's poor, including pastoralists, landless households and women (LID, 1998). The rapid rise in demand for livestock products, combined with a reduction of grazing lands through population expansion, may have considerable implications for the relationship between people, livestock and the environment, and in particular the livelihoods of the poor. There is a need to understand the emerging relationships so that governments and donors can develop and promote appropriate policies that allow impact of the driving forces to be managed such that social and environmental considerations are both positively addressed.

This study outlines a conceptual framework for examining the effect of the driving forces that are underpinning the evolution of livestock production systems on the livelihoods of the poor who rear livestock, and their relationship with the environment. The report highlights information gaps, and provides guidance on where and how additional information might be collected to clarify and elaborate upon emerging issues.

The paper is divided into three sections:

The first section builds upon the analytical framework of the Livestock & Environment Study (summarised in Figure 1) by identifying production systems that are operated by the poor and considering their relative contribution to the various environment hotspots identified in the previous Study

The second section of this report hypothesises how the systems of the poor are responding to - and being shaped by - the driving forces underpinning the evolution of livestock production. It identifies new 'environmental' and 'livelihood' hotspots that might be created through these changes, and proposes policy interventions that might ameliorate these effects such that the livelihoods of the poor - and the environment - are protected.

The results of the analysis are used to draw together our conclusions in the third section on where and how additional information might be collected to clarify and elaborate upon emerging issues.