Abstract
Understanding the interactions between livestock and the environment in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa is essential to sustainable livestock sector development. In this comparative overview, we review the available evidence on the extent of grassland degradation, land, and water pollution by nutrients and microorganisms, water stress, biodiversity loss, and greenhouse gas emissions and their relation to livestock production in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. We also draw on Asia's past livestock development trajectories and their impacts to provide guidance for future sustainable livestock development in Sub-Saharan Africa. Forward-looking policies and programs that anticipate long-term changes in the livestock sector and that assess trade-offs between policies and investments in multiple environmental domains in Sub-Saharan Africa are required to support sustainable development and guide policy decisions in the years ahead, from an environmental, social and public health perspective.
Highlights
In the past two decades, and especially since the turn of the millennium, the African continent has been one of the fastest-growing regions of the world
This paper aims to provide some guidance for sustainable livestock sector development in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) by presenting a comparative overview of the relationship between livestock and the environment in SSA and Asia
We provide a comparative overview of the extent of grassland transformation and degradation, land and water pollution by nutrients, and microorganisms, water withdrawal and stress, biodiversity loss, and greenhouse gas emissions, their relation to livestock production on the two continents, and the broad consequences of these environmental impacts (Figure 1)
Summary
In the past two decades, and especially since the turn of the millennium, the African continent has been one of the fastest-growing regions of the world. Average annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth for the entire continent was over 4%, though with ups and downs and differences between countries [1] Economic growth prospects, both for the medium and long-term, are good [2,3,4]. The anticipated expansion of Africa’s livestock sector and associated value chains may satisfy consumer demand but, if uncontrolled, could have negative effects on public health, the environment and livelihoods, as experience elsewhere, for instance in Asia, has shown. Between 1985 and 2013 the poultry population passed from 3.5 to 12.4 billion and the off-take rate from 141 to 207% [7] This spectacular change in the livestock sector has been accompanied by a number of negative effects on society. Even though available literature and datasets only allow a broad exploration of the above livestock-environment interactions on the two continents, highlighting contrasts, and similarities generates useful information to guide the decision-making process
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