Climate Smart Livestock production (CSL) is the application of practices that reduce the environmental impact of livestock production to increase resilience, productivity and profit to achieve sustainability. Over the last three decades, both local and international development organizations have implemented livestock development projects across Nigeria to strengthen the food system and empower smallholder livestock farmers through tailored approaches. These approaches include farmers' capacity development on good animal husbandry practices, access to veterinary and breeding services, provision of infrastructure, financial literacy, and gender inclusion. The International Livestock Research Institute documented that these interventions have contributed significantly to human nutrition, women empowerment, increased livestock productivity, and improved livelihood.
Current situation
In 2020, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimated that the Nigerian livestock sector produced 1,601 kt eq CO2 of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, this is more than Kenyan livestock emissions estimated at 1,434 kt eq CO2despite Kenya's larger livestock population. Manure and feeding management are two critical pathways that emit carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide in livestock production. Several development organizations have implemented strategic and innovative approaches to increase smallholder livestock farmers' productivity to address the shortage of livestock products. These projects focused primarily on productivity improvement through a wide range of interventions such as veterinary and breeding services, knowledge transfer, and revitalization of dry (unproductive) land for fodder production. While these projects have achieved remarkable impacts, the effect of climate change and loss of soil biodiversity is still a force that reverses these impacts.
Livestock production is affected by climate change through drought, rising heat waves, floods, disease outbreaks, and loss of soil biodiversity while livestock production has been reported to contribute significantly to climate change principally through greenhouse gas emissions.
Recommendation
Increased soil biodiversity and reduced greenhouse gas emission are the two key climate-smart livestock production drivers. In addition, the implementation and adoption of climate-smart livestock production principally depend on government policies, availability of funding for tailored research and sustainable livestock projects, operationalisation of climate-smart livestock developmental projects, and mainstreaming of novel research outcomes. To significantly make a lasting impact in the Nigerian livestock sector, it is critical to invest in climate-smart livestock production.
Short term recommendations
In the short term, livestock development organizations need to integrate climate-smart livestock production otherwise known as sustainability into their project scope. Livestock production can be considered sustainable if it does not harm people, preserve the environment, and is profitable to the farmers.
In addition to sustainability, carbon farming is another concept that needs to be mainstreamed into livestock development projects. It involves capturing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and storing it in the soil. It improves soil health by improving the soil structure, water retention capacity, and revitalizing the soil biodiversity which ultimately improves soil fertility to produce quality pasture to sustain livestock production.
- Stakeholder engagement, policy advocacy, and capacity development
Climate-smart livestock production is critical for the development of the Nigerian livestock industry, and it requires huge capital investment from donor partners and human and intellectual resources from development organizations. Nigeria has taken the first crucial step of updating and submitting the Nationally Determined Contribution document that reflects Nigeria's efforts to lower its carbon footprint to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The next important step is the integration of these strategies into the National Livestock Transformation Plan, National Animal Feed Policy, National Dairy Policy and other livestock policies to set clear short and long-term climate smart goals.
Figure.1: Climate Smart Livestock production key indicators.
Every development organization implementing livestock projects should be committed to achieving the goals through a collaborative effort with the government and its relevant agencies. The adoption of climate-smart livestock practices in Nigeria requires a conscious effort by the implementing organizations to improve livestock farmers' production practices through tailored capacity development, revised implementation models, and transparent monitoring and evaluation system.
- Tracking emission and carbon footprint
Similar to other anthropogenic carbon emissions, livestock activities leave a carbon footprint along the production value chain. It is important for organizations implementing livestock development projects to track greenhouse gas emissions across all stages of production. Tracking livestock production GHG emissions will give a holistic view of the cumulative emissions and indicate which livestock production process emits the most GHG and require immediate attention. While emission tracking is a novel idea in Nigeria's livestock industry, it is the most efficient measure to track and proffer mitigating measures to livestock GHG emissions. Several emission tracking tools could be tailored to the Nigerian context such as the Global Livestock Environmental Assessment Model (GLEAM), Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agriculture (SAFA), and Economics and Policy Innovations for Climate Smart Agriculture (EPIC). In addition to tracking, these tools can simulate scenarios to give an overview of the expected emission in response to a proposed change in production practices.
- Knowledge sharing between research institutions and development agencies.
The potential of research institutions in Nigeria has not been sufficiently harnessed. Livestock development projects need to deepen collaboration with dedicated research institutions and Nigerian universities to leverage their expertise and resources to develop tailored innovative practices that would enhance the adoption of climate-smart livestock practices and their impact on food security.
- Breeding Management
Nigeria's livestock population is estimated at 18.4 million cattle, 43.4 million sheep, 76 million goats, and 180 million poultry. This livestock population does not just require a high quantity of feed but also emits large volumes of greenhouse gases. A strategic breeding program will increase productivity while reducing the livestock population. This will reduce the quantity of feed required and it will ultimately reduce the carbon footprint through ruminal digestion and manure handling.
- Improved Management practices
Climate-smart livestock practices can be incorporated into the daily and occasional routine management of livestock farming. Practices such as efficient grazing enhance soil biodiversity and soil carbon sequestration and conservation. In addition, manure emits nitrous oxide in the presence of oxygen and methane in the absence of oxygen. Manure mono-fermentation is an efficient procedure to generate methane, renewable energy from manure in the absence of oxygen. This could serve as additional income for farmers' cooperatives.
Long term recommendations
Nigeria and the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa are endowed with livestock that is adapted to the tropical nature of the continent; however, incessant climate change has made adaptability and resilience difficult for the local livestock breeds. In the long term, there is a need to develop improved breeds of livestock that will be more tolerant to the effects of climate change to ensure food security. The improved breeds of livestock would have improved feed efficiency leading to increased milk, and meat production, resilience towards the increasingly hot climatic condition, and disease resistance.
Potential challenges that could limit the implementation of climate-smart livestock project in Nigeria
The novelty of climate-smart livestock production will pose a challenge towards its implementation. The followings are some key potential challenges and next steps;
- Limited policy framework: The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and several other stakeholders has done a tremendous job in developing policy frameworks to increase livestock productivity through the National Livestock Transformation Plan, Dairy Policy Framework, and National Animal Feed Policy. It is critical to integrate climate-smart practices in these policies to align with international best practices. In addition, it would also fast-track the timeline to achieve the policy goals and reduce the financial resources required to achieve sustainable food security through the livestock sector.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
- Insufficient Experts: While climate-smart livestock production is a topic of interest in the international community, it is gradually gaining local stakeholders' interest. However, only a few professionals could develop a working policy framework and mainstreaming strategies. In addition to the local professionals, experts from countries with similar climatic conditions can be engaged to bridge this gap.
- Limited Awareness: Without any doubt, the leading goal of the majority of the stakeholders in livestock production is to increase profit through increased productivity. These stakeholders are aware of the management practices that could increase productivity. Most of these practices contribute to increased GHG emissions and reduce soil biodiversity. It is critical to developing a solid awareness strategy to inform the stakeholders (farmers and input suppliers) about the benefit of climate-smart livestock production to the people, the planet, and their profit.
Conclusion
Livestock production has been a major source of sustenance for millions of Nigerians through employment opportunities along the value chain and as a source of food. Data and reality have confirmed that our current method of livestock production is harmful to the environment and the planet. It is high time all stakeholders involved in the livestock value chain responded strategically and synergistically to save the environment.
Adekunle Adeoye is an Independent Dairy Value Chain Consultant with experience in improving the Nigerian dairy sector through strategic dairy chain management.
