Presented by Jimmy Smith at the Borlaug Seminar Series on The Future of Worldwide Sustainable Livestock, Texas University, 3 March 2015

1. Towards successful, and sustainable,
livestock futures worldwide
Borlaug distinguished lecture
Texas A&M University, 3 March 2015
Jimmy Smith  Director General  ILRI

2. The global livestock sector:
Changes ahead
40% of agricultural GDP and growing

3. 4of5highest valueglobal commodities arelivestock
FAOSTAT 2014
(values for 2012)
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
1600
1800
2000
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
180
200
Production(MT)millions
Netproductionvalue(Int$)billion
net production value (Int $) billion production (MT)
Cow milk has
overtaken rice
Eggs have
displaced
maize

4. Per capita global kilocalorie
availability from edible animal products
Source: Herrero et al (PNAS, in press)

5. Gains in meat consumption in developing
countries are outpacing those of developed
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
1980 1990 2002 2015 2030 2050
Millionmetrictonnes
developing countries
developed countries
Hypothetical: If
developing-country
per capita
consumption rate
equalled that of
developed countries

6. Milk demand and consumption levels
differ in developed and developing countries
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
1000
2005/07 2050
Demand for milk
million t/annum
Developing
Developed
0
50
100
150
200
250
2005/07 2050
Milk consumption
kg/capita/annum
Developed
Developing

7. Rising demand for meat,
milk and eggs is a global
phenomenon . . .
. . . but demand is
greatest in South Asia
and Sub-Saharan Africa

8. FAO 2012Based on anticipated change in absolute tonnes of product comparing 2000 and 2030
Percentage growth in demand
for livestock products: 2000−2030

9. Huge increases over 2005/7 amounts
of cereals, dairy and meat will be needed by 2050
From 2bn−3bn
tonnes cereals each year
From 664m−1bn
tonnes dairy each year
From 258m−460m
tonnes meat each year

10. The global livestock sector:
Opportunities
and challenges

11. Opportunities: Why
The demographics of demand
and supply open new,
unprecedented, opportunities:
• To enable smallholders to
continue to play central roles
in food and nutritional security
• To transform livelihoods
and rural economies
in developing countries
• To make animal agriculture
more environmentally
sustainable

12. Opportunities: Who
• 90% of animal products are
produced & consumed
in same country or region
• Most are produced
by smallholders
• More than 70% of livestock
products are sold informally
• 500m smallholders produce
80% of developing-world
food
• 43% of the agricultural
workforce is female

13. BMGF, FAO, ILRI
Smallholders still dominate
livestock production in many countries
Region
(definition of
‘smallholder’)
% production by smallholder livestock farms
Beef Chicken
meat
Sheep/goat
meat
Milk Pork Eggs
East Africa
(≤ 6 milking
animals)
60-90
Bangladesh
(< 3ha land)
65 77 78 65 77
India
(< 2ha land)
75 92 92 69 71
Vietnam
(small scale)
80
Philippines
(backyard)
50 35

14. Opportunities: How
This rising demand for
animal-source foods
will be met − one way
or another
We can meet that
demand in economically
viable, sustainable,
equitable and healthy
ways that also reduce
poverty and hunger
This requires
proactive action

15. Demand for livestock commodities in developing
economies will be met – the only question is how
Scenario #1
Meeting livestock demand by
importing livestock products
Scenario #2
Meeting livestock demand by
importing livestock industrial production know-how
Scenario #3
Meeting livestock demand by
transforming smallholder livestock systems

16. Scenario #3 is good news for
rural economic transformation
Upsides of smallholder
transformation
• The coming livestock transitions
and consolidations can help
millions improve their food
production as well as health,
livelihoods and environments
• Of the world’s 1 billion smallholder
livestock producers, some:
﹣1/3 will find alternate livelihoods
﹣1/3 will succeed in the market
﹣1/3 could go either way

17. Responding:
Livestock research
for development

18. Trajectories of growth
• ‘Strong growth’
– Intensifying and increasingly market
oriented often transforming
smallholder systems
• ‘Fragile growth’
– Where remoteness, marginal land
resources or agro climatic vulnerability
restrict intensification
• ‘High growth with externalities’
(industrial)
– Intensified livestock systems with
diverse challenges including the
environment and human health

19. Trajectory
‘Strong growth’
Sector
Ruminant meat and
milk, esp. in SSA, India
− Pork in some regions
Issues
− Sustainable
productivity
- Market access and
food safety
− Zoonotic outbreaks
Opportunities
Novel approaches
spanning sustainable
productivity, markets,
institutional and policy
issues, risk analyses
‘Fragile growth’ Some smallholder and
pastoral systems; little
part in the production
response
− Multiple endemic
diseases
− Zoonoses
− Adaptive capacity
− Movement controls
Mostly public sector
interventions, mitigating
vulnerability, improving
resilience
‘High growth
with
externalities’
Mostly monogastric
− China for all
commodities
− Environmental
- Drug resistance
− Climate impacts on
new vector and
pathogen dynamics
− Disease scares
Modalities of operation
with private sector
largely established.
Managing environment
and health risks and
consumer demand
Distinguishing opportunities

20. Research for development solutions
Food, equity,
environment, health
Policies, institutions
and markets
- Policy
development
- Foresight; trade
- Livestock value
chains
Sustainable livestock
systems
- Sustainable
intensification
- Climate change:
adaptation & mitigation
- System resilience
Feed resources
- Conservation &
use
- Feed production
- Feed utilization
Animal genetics and
breeding
- Gene discovery
- Genetic
improvement
- Breeding strategies
- conservation
Livestock – health
- Vaccines &
diagnostics
- Zoonoses; food
safety
- Herd health

21. Greatest burden of zoonoses falls on
one billion poor livestock keepers
Map by ILRI, from original in a report to DFID: Mapping of Poverty and Likely Zoonoses Hotspots, 2012

22. 199
8
2007
African swine fever:
Threatens $150-billion global pig industry
Recent reports indicate ASF has moved into Belarus, Poland and Lithuania

23. Vaccines save lives of animals that both
increase food security and reduce poverty
ILVAC – a global vaccine initiative
An body technologies
Vaccine technologies
Cellular technologies
Diagnos c technologies
Genomic technologies
Contagiousbovine
pleuropneumonia
EastCoastfever
Africanswinefever
Consor a for research & product development and capacity development
Private sector
GALVmed
CRPs
NARS
Inter-gov
agencies
Improved vaccines and
diagnos c tools
Pestedespesruminants
RiValleyfever
Infec ous disease
research: basic & applied
ILVAC – a vaccine pla orm

24. ECF Consortium: Improved vaccines to control
lethal East Coast fever infections in cattle in Africa
Annual meeting, Addis Ababa, 9-11th February 2015

25. African swine fever: TAMU-ILRI planned research for
generating a subunit vaccine (funding still required)
• TAMU developed two candidate multivalent vaccines
• The vaccines are well tolerated by piglets & stimulate robust antibody & T-cell
responses in the animals
• Below left: The antibodies induced were shown to recognize the ASF virus
Studies to determine protective value of the vaccines is pending (Funding)
• Above right: Challenge with virulent Kenyan ASF virus to test
vaccine efficacy will be performed in ILRI BSL2 pig unit using
virulent Kenyan ASF virus isolated & characterized by ILRI

26. Food safety
• 90% of animal products are produced
and consumed in the same region
• Over 70% of livestock products
are sold ‘informally’
• There are major opportunities to
ensure that milk, meat and eggs are
safe for consumption (e.g. via
risk assessments and risk- rather
than rule-based regulations)
• ‘Intensifying’ livestock production
systems bring people and animals closer
together, increasing the threat of
zoonotic disease outbreaks and spread

27. ILRI–Texas collaboration:
Exporting live cattle and shoats and animal products: Ethiopia (2008)
• Risk from
properly handled
carcasses, meat
and meat products
is negligible
• Risk from
live cattle or shoats
introducing pathogens
of concern is important

28. LiveGene
Delivering improved genetics to the world’s small-scale livestock keepers
Targeting
Gene
Discovery
Delivering
Genetic Gains
Prioritizing
geography,
environment,
climate and social
change, traits,
species, breed.
Adaptive alleles,
characterization,
conservation,
Genome editing
Digital recording
platforms.
Phenotyping and
farmer feedback.
Integrated data – comms, bio-repository, phenotyping, feedback, bioinformatics.
Partnerships and networks
Capacity Development

29. New tools allow us to look in new places
for sources of variation – including wildlife
Comparative gene network
and sequence analysis
allows us to ask new kinds
of questions about genomes
– eg “what is different about
this (group of) species
compared to all other
“traditional” linkage mapping requires crosses – so initial discovery
is limited to variants within a species
Cow NDama KFITRRPSLKTLQEKGLIKDQIFGSPLHTLCEREKSTVPRFVKQCIEAVEK
Cow Boran KFITRRPSLKTLQEKGLIKDQIFGSHLHTLCEREKSTVPRFVKQCIEAVEK
Human KFISRRPSLKTLQEKGLIKDQIFGSHLHTVCEREHSTVPWFVKQCIEAVEK
Pig KFITRRPSLKTLQEKGLIKDQIFGSHLHTVCERENSTVPRFVKQCIEAVEK
Chicken KFISRRPSLKTLQEKGLIKDQIFGSHLHLVCEHENSTVPQFVRQCIKAVER
Salmon KFISRRPSMKTLQEKGIIKDRVFGCHLLALCEREGTTVPKFVRQCVEAVEK

30. Genotype data is relatively cheap and easy to obtain:
Phenotype data remains a challenge
Can we skip a generation of
technology?
• Fast, light, cheap
performance data
harvesting.
• Cheap sensors, mobile
platforms, crowd sensing…..
• Simultaneously providing
management information to
the farmer and
performance data to the
breeder.

31. Identify and deliver variants
associated with adaptation
Genotyping Phenotyping
Adapted &
productive
livestock
Genome
editing
Targeting
Data systems
Delivery
systems

32. • 70% of production cost – FEED
• 70% of feed – CROP RESIDUES
• Potential huge demand for grain for
MONOGASTRICS
• Opportunities:
– Improved crop residue
quantity and quality
– Improved use of crop residues
with other feed resources
– Balancing trade offs in biomass use
– Use of sorghum and other alternates
to maize for monogastrics
Research-based livestock feed successes

33. Feed opportunities
• Produce more and better quality
– Crop varieties with improved
residue quality/quantity
– Forages
• Better use available feed
– Via processing (chopping)
– Feed mixtures (rations)
• Import feed into the system
– From areas of surplus to deficit
– Concentrates
• Potential environmental ‘win-win’

34. ILRI–Texas collaborations in
livestock and environment issues
• Feed the Future Innovation Lab
for Small-scale Irrigation
- Exploring feed options
• Use of systems models
- Africa RISING
- LIVES

35. • Research evidence for
smallholder dairying included:
﹣Risk analysis of
informal milk marketing
﹣Employment and income
benefits for the poor
• Business/market development
links poor livestock producers
and feed suppliers to more
sophisticated input/output
systems
﹣A dairy ‘hub’ approach
has been widely adopted
Research-based livestock market successes

36. Global greenhouse gas efficiency
per kilogram of animal protein produced
Large livestock production inefficiencies
in the developing world present an opportunity
Herrero et al PNAS (in press)

37. GHG emissions to 2050 assuming developing
countries do NOT improve their efficiencies
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
2007 estimate 2050 estimate 2050 estimate
if all at
0.5l/day
GHG emissions GT CO2 eq per annum assuming
developed country levels remain at 1.3 kg/CO2 eq
per kg milk while developing countries remain at
7.5 kg/CO2 eq per kg milk
developing
developed

38. GHG emissions to 2050 assuming developing
countries DO improve their efficiencies
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
2007 estimate 2050 estimate 2050 estimate
if all at 0.5l/day
GHG emissions GT CO2 eq per annum
assuming both developed and developing country
levels are at 1.3 kg/CO2 eq per kg milk
developing
developed

40. Image credits
Slide cover:
(Left) Gond painting, 2012, by Kaushal Prasad Tekam (via Pinterest
(Middle) Untitled, by Kalam Patua (via Asia Art Archive)
(Right) Sacred cows, by Vidushini (via Novica)
Slide #11: Sacred cows, by Vidushini (via Novica)
Slide #12: Tingatinga painting (via InsideArtAfrica.com)
Slide #14: Untitled, by Kalam Patua (via Asia Art Archive)
Slide #16: Kalighat painting (via Pinterest)

41. The presentation has a Creative Commons licence. You are free to re-use or distribute this work, provided credit is
given to ILRI.
better lives through livestock
ilri.org
Thank you!

42. The presentation has a Creative Commons licence. You are free to re-use or distribute this work, provided credit is
given to ILRI.
better lives through livestock
ilri.org