Overview of Climate-Smart Agriculture for livestock production and livelihood in West Africa

Highlights of livestock sector in West Africa

• 47% of poor people in West Africa derive their livelihoods from keeping livestock

• Slow increases in production of livestock products (2.5% per annum); High imports of livestock products especially dairy and this will likely continue

• Extensive systems with low external-inputs; Low productive potential of local breeds; Seasonal feed scarcity and low feed quality;

• Drought a major constraint

Climate change impact on livestock sector

• Uncertainty regarding rainfall-related projections, but are small changes.

• Temperature increase main issue.

• Main impacts on feed, grazing availability, greater heat stress; changes in disease distribution and prevalence

Livestock and climate smart agriculture

• Estimated methane emission in 2000 for livestock production systems in West

Africa was 1.46 million tonnes/year and is estimated to increase by 79% by 2030

(Herrero et al. 2008). Cattle contributed more than 80% of the methane emission.

Livestock and climate smart agriculture

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Owning livestock is critical to food security in dryland West Africa

Key questions relating to livestock and climate change• Which animal species and breeds should be kept in which areas and

which livestock management systems are most suited and what are the trade-offs? Which animal diseases should we focus on?

• How can we add value to the existing livestock-based adaptation strategies?

• Are there policy and institutional mechanisms to enhance adaptation of livestock production systems to climate change?

• How could the capacity of rural institutions be strengthened to use appropriate tools and strategies to cope better with consequences of climate change?

• How could we balance the need for short-term adaptation, which is often reactive, with long-term climate change adaptation planning?

Key challenges faced by livestock sector in national adaptation planning• Scarce data on the contribution of livestock to GHG emissions in

different livestock systems in Africa

• Lack of support for pastoral production systems, and the failure to recognize that these are highly adaptive systems which resist conformation to the standard “intensification” model

• Lack of recognition in many policy dialogues that food security improvements will not always be compatible with seeking reductions in emissions from the livestock sector, and there are not “one size fits all” models

• Agriculture in general, and livestock in particular, suffer from inherent biases in the current mitigation financing mechanism e.g. the Clean Development Mechanism excludes agriculture by and large.

Recommendations for climate change adaptation in relation to livestock• A more concerted effort at higher levels of action and governance are

needed, to move beyond incremental adaptation and bring about the transformations that will allow for systemic adaptation

• Regional framework for the adaptation of West African agriculture to climate change cannot be dissociated from the political, economic and social dynamics in the region, as these dynamics drive adaptation pathways.

• Adaptation to climate change needs to be considered in the context of other significant drivers of change (competition for land and water, population growth and changing demographic distribution, increasingly globalized food systems which transmit price shocks).