Presented by Jimmy Smith at the World Vegetable Center, Taiwan, 18 November 2012

1. Meat & Veg
Livestock and vegetable researchers are natural, high-value,
partners in work for the well-being of the world’s poor
Jimmy Smith
ILRI Director General
Presented at the World Vegetable Center, Taiwan, 18 November 2012

2. Meat & Veg: Natural, high-value, partners
One of the things that distinguishes
Homo sapiens is that we’re omnivores.
Unusually, we’ve evolved to
eat both meat and vegetables.
Indeed, 'meat and two veg’
is the traditional English meal.
‘A kiss without a moustache’,
say the Spanish,
‘is like an egg without salt.’
‘A kiss without a moustache’,
we’re saying,
‘is like meat without veg.’

3. Livestock in developing countries/Asia
70% of the world’s livestock (18.5 billion head) are in developing
countries:
• 15 billion poultry (70% in Asia)
• 1.6 billion shoats (44% in Asia)
• 1.2 billion bovines (49% in Asia)
• 0.6 billion pigs (84% in Asia)
FAO

4. Livestock keepers in developing countries
One billion people earning <$2 a day depend on livestock:
• 600 million in South Asia
• 300 million in sub-Saharan Africa
0 or no data
Density of poor
livestock keepers
Density of poor ILRI, 2012
livestock keepers

5. Livestock and livelihoods
 Livestock production and
marketing are essential
for the livelihoods of
almost 1 billion.
 Two-thirds are women.
 1.3 billion people
employed in livestock
value chains globally.
5

6. Livestock and livelihoods
• 70% of the world’s rural poor rely on livestock
for important parts of their livelihoods.
• Of the 600 million poor livestock keepers in the
world, around two-thirds are rural women.
• Over 100 million landless people keep livestock.
• Up to 40% of benefits from livestock keeping
come from non-market, intangible benefits,
mostly insurance and financing.
• In the poorest countries, livestock manure
comprises over 70% of soil fertility
amendments.

7. Livestock for nutrition
• In developing countries, livestock
contribute 6−36% of protein and
2−12% of calories.
• Livestock provide food for at least
830 million food-insecure people.
• Small amounts of animal-source
foods have large benefits on child
growth and cognition and on
pregnancy outcomes.
• A small number of countries bear
most of the burden of malnutrition
(India, Ethiopia, Nigeria−36%
burden).

8. ILRI Offices
India
Mali
China
Laos
Vietnam
Nairobi: Headquarters
Addis Ababa: principal campus
In 2012, offices opened in: Nigeria
Kampala, Uganda
Sri Lanka
Harare, Zimbabwe Mozambique
Gaborone, Botswana Kenya
Office in Bamako, Mali Thailand
relocated to Ethiopia
Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
Dakar, Senegal

9. ILRI Resources
• Staff: 700.
• Budget $60 million.
• 30+ scientific disciplines.
• 100 scientists from 39 countries.
• 56% of internationally recruited
staff are from
22 developing countries.
• 34% of internationally
recruited staff are women.
• Large campuses in Kenya and Ethiopia.
• 70% of research in sub-Saharan Africa.

10. ILRI’s competencies – integrated sciences
Now Future opportunities
Gender and equity Policy, investment and trade
Resilience Animal health delivery
Value chains and innovation Payment for ecosystem services
Zoonotics and food safety Conservation of indigenous
animal genetic resources
Feeds
Livestock and environment

11. ILRI’s competencies – biosciences
Now Future opportunities
Vaccines Genomics and gene
delivery
Genomics Feed biosciences
Breeding Poultry genetics
BecA

12. Opportunities for
research synergies

13. Livestock support vegetable farming,
and vice versa
• Farm animals remain essential to small, mixed crop-and-
livestock farming systems across the developing world.
• Livestock manure fertilizes crop soils on mixed farms,
in developing countries supplying 23% of the nitrogen
inputs required for vegetable and other crop production.
• The residues of vegetables (e.g., soy beans, fodder beet,
sweet potato) provide feed for farm animals.

14. Livestock and vegetables enhance nutrition
• Livestock incomes enable poor households in poor countries
to buy cheap grains and tubers for the bulk of their meals,
as well as some highly nourishing vegetables.
• Consumption of even very modest amounts of vegetables
and milk, meat and eggs helps nourish people subsisting
largely on cheap grains and tubers, particularly very young
children and women of child-bearing years.
• The point is to enable poor households to diversify the
foods they consume and to incorporate modest amounts of
more nourishing foods in cheap, starchy staple diets.

15. Livestock and vegetables suit
an urbanizing, warming world
Smallholder livestock and vegetable production
offers similar opportunities:
 Nutritious foods for the malnourished.
 Market opportunities to meet high urban demand.
 Income opportunities for women and youth.
 Expands household incomes.
 Generates jobs.
 Makes use of organic urban waste and wastewater.
 Can be considered ‘organic’ and supplied to niche markets.

16. Opportunities for
refined integration
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17. Meat & Veg: Research partnerships
University of Kassel, Germany: 2007-10
Urban Food: Nutrient efficient agriculture in West African Cities
Assessed nutrient flows in 3 cities and ruminant livestock practices
for safer urban livestock and vegetable products.
CORAF & ILRI: 2009-13
Integrated dairy horticulture systems in semi-arid West Africa
Establishing integrated processes for identifying, testing, adapting,
and scaling out dairy horticulture systems.
IWMI & ILRI: 2005-8
Wastewater for forage & veg production in Hyderabad, India
Identified contamination pathways and intervention points in
wastewater vegetable crop/fodder production.

18. ILRI & AVDRC in CGIAR Research Programs
• (1) ILRI leads the CGIAR Research Program on
Livestock and Fish.
• (2) ILRI leads Agriculture-associated Diseases
component of the CGIAR Research Program on
Agriculture for Improved Nutrition & Health
• ILRI participates in five other
CGIAR Research Programs:
(3) Drylands
(4) Humidtropics
AVDRC is a partner with ILRI in this CRP
(5) Policies, Institutions & Markets
(6) Water, Land & Ecosystems
(7) Climate Change, Agriculture & Food Security

19. Opportunities for
livestock & vegetable research
Research is needed on:
 Ways to manage the perishable nature of these products.
 Innovative technological and institutional solutions for food safety
and public health problems that suit developing countries.
 Processes, regulations and institutional arrangements regarding use of
banned or inappropriate pesticides, polluted water or
wastewater for irrigation, and untreated sewage sludge for fertilizer.
 Innovative mechanisms that will ensure access
by the poor to these growing markets.
 Ways to include small-scale producers in markets demanding
increasingly stringent food quality, safety and uniformity standards.

20. Opportunities for
refining integrated production systems
Role of animals in provision of
manure for vegetable production
 Safe practices
 Appropriate amounts
 Appropriate storage
 Regulatory environment
Role of dual-purpose food-feed crops
 Producing vegetables and residues for animal feed
 Cowpea and other pulses
Use of vegetable waste for livestock feed
 From household waste to waste from large scale processing.
 Could be pursued in value chain research in CRP 3.7 or CRP 1.2.

21. Meat & Veg: Natural, high-value,
partners for a better world
Steven Mwamvana.
42 years old.
• Pesticide sprayer.
• Potato, bean, chicken
and guinea fowl farmer.
• Vegetable grower.
• Lead livestock farmer.
Khulungira Village,
central Malawi.

22. better lives through livestock
ilri.org
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