CEES DE HAAN
Livestock Advisor, Agriculture and Natural Resource Department, World Bank.
After four days of hard work and often heated debates, it is my pleasure to make some closing remarks at this Conference. Let me first provide some statistics regarding the attendance of this meeting. The Conference had a total of 108 participants, of which more than half came from the developing world. There was a strong representation from Governments and International Organizations, and a good number of participants came from NGO's. It was a pity that the private sector was not represented.
| Region | Institution | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| North America Central/South America. | 13 10 | Governments | 52 |
| Western Europe Eastern Europe | 31 4 | Universities. | 16 |
| Africa | 34 | NGO's | 18 |
| Asia (West) Asia (Rest) | 3 11 | International Organisations | 22 |
| Oceania | 2 | Private | 0 |
During the Conference eight main and three supporting papers, and ten case-studies with interesting policy-technology interventions were presented. Those case-studies were geographically well distributed. Four cases looked at situations in Africa, three in Europe, and one in Latin America, West Asia and North Africa (WANA) and Asia each. More than twenty well prepared poster displays complemented the oral presentation.
In these closing remarks, I propose to give my assessment of some of the main achievements of the Conference, the remaining gaps and the proposed follow-up actions.
Achievements.
In the inaugural addresses of this Conference, the objective of the meeting was described as creating a consensus on the main conclusions of the multi-donor Study regarding direction and size of future interactions on livestock and the environment, on the need for actions, and on the direction of those actions. As emerged from the presentations and the working groups' reports, I feel that we succeeded reasonably well in the first two objectives, but did not entirely fulfill the third one.
It seems to me that there was an almost general agreement on the challenge we face. The current trends of increasing demand for meat and milk and the persisting need for the non-food services of livestock would most likely continue well into the next century. If the incentives for the different production systems do not change significantly over the next decades, this would most likely result in a significant restructuring of the industry, with a strong increase in industrial production systems, especially of pigs and poultry. The analysis of the trends over the last decade, and basic production economics certainly support this central theme of the multi-donor Study.
This does not mean that, as Conference organizers and representatives of donor organizations, or as the public sector, we should invest heavily in the promotion of the industrial modes of production. As has been described in the Conference, industrial modes of production are, because of their open nature, the systems which put the heaviest burden on the environment. This significant shift incites to a close re-assessment of the respective roles of the public and private sectors. The strategy needs to have the private sector as the exclusive manager of production, and the public sector as focusing exclusively on the policy and regulatory functions. Public sector staff, also in developing countries, would have to change their roles increasingly from a focus on the production of more meat and milk to a role of quality control and protection of the natural resources.
There also seems to be a general agreement at the Conference, that we should not see the impact of livestock on the environment in its physical impacts only, but that livestock behave the way they do, because of human actions, as expressed through demand and economic policies. These agreements are extremely important parts in developing a strategy of what should be done to manage the future global explosion of the demand for livestock products.
Main issues and gaps.
While the Conference clearly agreed with the current projections regarding the increase in demand for livestock products, there was considerable debate, also highlighted in the closing paper, whether this dramatic increase could not be reduced through more careful demand management. While past experiences do not augur very well for the potential of effective demand management at the low consumption levels, such as occur in the developing world, it is obviously an area which requires more attention.
In addition, there was clearly some uneasiness, especially among the livestock specialists, about the projected shift towards industrial production this increase in demand would entail. The public sector scientific community obviously prefers the grazing and mixed systems, and the projected increase in the industrial system more or less requires a paradigm shift. More specifically, additional analytical work was identified in the following areas:
The most obvious operational gap identified by the Conference is the need to make this Study more operational for policy makers at national and local level, and strengthen the participation of those decision makers in this process. This gap is easily explained if one looks back at the origin of this Study. It originated from the need to provide policy makers in the development agencies with a more accurate assessment of the positive and negative effects of livestock on the environment. Only more recently, and on the basis of the analysis, the emphasis shifted to a more pro-active mode: i.e. provide policy makers with the tools to manage the expected increase in demand in a more sustainable fashion.
The follow-up.
As the title of these closing remarks already indicated, we see this Study and the Conference not as the end, but as a work in progress. As indicated above, a number of obvious follow-up actions emerge from the conclusions of the Conference.
First, there is a need to fill the gaps in our knowledge regarding some of the broader issues affecting livestock-environment interactions. They include the feasibility of demand management of livestock products, especially in the developing world, the social and equity aspects of future livestock development, and its impact on non-renewable resources. Major gaps also exist in our current information on quantitative livestock-environment interactions. The Study clearly revealed how little quantitative information is available on the positive and the negative effects of livestock on the environment. Long- term information systems need to be initiated to enable better decision making and to get the livestock-environment debate out of the climate of emotion, conjecture and mis-conceptions, where it clearly still lingers.
Second, there is a strong need to operationalize the conclusion of the Study and the Conference, and improve its user-friendliness. Its global conclusions need to be translated into practical policy and institutional instruments, which bring about environmentally friendlier and more sustainable livestock production and processing technologies. The preparation of these guidelines will require frequent and close consultations with national, regional and local stakeholders. The entire chain from producer to consumer clearly needs to be involved in this process.
Third, we need to develop clear-on-the ground examples of how livestock production can be made more sustainable. Positive examples, such as successful wildlife livestock integration, conservation of domestic-animal-biodiversity and intensive mixed farming with highly beneficial nutrient and energy cycles exist, but need to be better documented. Similarly, some of the more innovative ideas of the Study, such as the geographical distribution of the industrial systems need to be tested to identify their practical implementation requirements.
We hope that the Steering Committee of this Study, in close cooperation with the stakeholders involved, can continue to take the lead in this area.
A word of thanks.
Finally, on behalf of the Steering Committee, I would like to thank the International Agricultural Centre, which has done such a magnificent job in organizing this Conference, and last but not least, I wish to thank you as the participants, who enthusiastically contributed to the debate. The challenge ahead of us all is large. I wish you a safe trip home and hope that this Conference has made a contribution in making livestock more sustainable, where ever that home is.
J. A. BOER,
Director Agriculture, Urban and Rural Development, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Netherlands.
Ladies and gentlemen,
This is the 22nd in the row of key-note presentations. What more can be said after the wealth of information presented to you over the past few days? Speaking on behalf of the Government of the Netherlands, I would, first of all, like to congratulate the organisers of the conference for their work and the excellent issue reader, which was provided to the participants.
I would also like to compliment Bob Hart and the scientists and policy advisors who were involved in the e-mail conference preceding the conference. It proved a good way to create interest and energy.
I would like to thank the donors that funded the activities and those that participated in the steering committee.
Last but not least I would like to thank Cees de Haan, Henning Steinfield and Harvey Blackburn who took the initiative, guided the process and summarized the results in a series of basis documents.
Finally I would like to compliment you, participants, on what turned out to be at times a lively debate on a subject of prime importance: livestock and the environment.
Ladies and gentlemen,
As director agriculture, rural and urban development, which is my present position in the
ministry, one always holds mixed views in the positive sense of the word.
I will gladly share some of them with you.
The wealth of a Nation, ladies and gentlemen, is much more than the aggregated physical assets of a country. Successful development is much more than mere economic growth expressed as a percentage of GDP. The rich variety of cultures and livelihood systems and the multiplicity of feedbacks and dependencies within and between the different socio-economic systems, are essential for the capability of societies to respond to both divers conditions and development opportunities.
For many rural people in mixed farming systems livestock is an important link to the monetary economy and an essential element in their survival strategies. For people engaged in more specialised livestock systems, the market is of course essential for both inputs and produce.
Environmental and social costs are generally not taken into account in market prices; the conference documents here mention “market failure”. One could even say that the production systems that have emerged within the present market setting are the ones that managed to make the most efficient use of existing market distortions. The resulting imperfect nutrient cycles, pollution, soil depletion and erosion, loss of biodiversity and the weakening of those socio-economic systems that failed to be competitive, have been documented widely in this conference and elsewhere, and this is an important step.
The question now is whether all this is inevitable and if not, who will start rocking the boat? Which forces will replace the invisible hand that does not seem to do the job adequately ? Questions that arise are:
Will affluent consumers change to healthier diets? Will they turn “green”? Will they be willing to pay more for quality animal products? Will green labelling allow for new mechanisms to help sustainable systems emerge?
Will the livestock sector, for the sake of sustainability and legitimacy, start “thinking green”? Will governments, with their average four year time horizons be able and willing to mimic the feedback mechanisms that markets fail to provide, and force polluters and consumers to pay? Is there an interest in informed debate amongst politicians or do we prefer scapegoats? And will financial institutions and perhaps donors induce their partners to think more holistically?
Although a combination of these forces might in the long run ‘turn the tide’ at first sight there is little hope that in the near future economic relations will change fundamentally.
Based on this “realism” the conference document stresses two main developments: 1) technology development, mainly to mitigate on-site environmental impact, and 2) the integration per area of specialised intensive systems, to close the nutrient cycles. The tendency has been to set aside grazing systems and mixed farming systems as being too inefficient to be considered as a serious alternative to provide livestock products on the world's markets.
Within a longer term development perspective, and taking into account important issues such as social and gender equity, these more traditional grazing and mixed systems should perhaps get more attention.
Bearing in mind that the efficiency referred to above is primarily biophysical and economic the question is whether, when externalities such as social and ecological costs and benefits are taken into account, these “traditional” systems would not come out more positively and could at the end of the day provide livestock products in a sustainable way.
As the conference has stressed, the pressure on these systems are high and environmental imbalances threaten their future.
Considering the importance of these systems for the livelihood, food security, cultural and social life of a large part of the poorer sections of the world population, the Dutch development cooperation will continue to focus its attention on supporting the development of sustainable land and water use systems and access issues within this context. The livestock component has in general received great attention in these efforts and will continue to do so. The numerous “best practices” and guidelines that were presented before and during the conference will be a great help in improving the performance of these interventions.
As said before, up till now we have not seen how prevailing market forces will bring about real changes in the present market relations and thus allow for real alternatives to occur.
Nevertheless, the development of new systems of analyses, and new parameters for efficiency and sustainability, like the one presented in this meeting on agro-eco systems health management, are of great importance.
They will help all stakeholders to gain better insight into the true wealth, that is sustainable wealth of nations.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Both increasing demand due to rising expectations and more debate about quality and externalities will dominate the technical debate in the coming years.
As shown over the past few days there is an increasing awareness of these new reference
points, and in order to approach them as opportunities this awareness phase is a precondition
for further progress of the sector. I would like to thank the organisers once again for providing
this opportunity and I hope you will all engage in this important debate so as to give the
opinion and future strategies more background
Thank you.
