Science and Technology Mailing List Archive

["Freeman, Ade (ILRI)" <<address removed>>]

I am Ade Freeman working for the International Livestock Research Institute
in Nairobi, Kenya. An emerging consensus that is emerging from this very
interesting e-discussion is that the Millennium Development Goals must be
the driving force for Agricultural Science and Technology policy. Some
contributions have looked at engines of growth and identified key
sub-sectors that can stimulate growth and reduce poverty in rural areas
because of their income and employment effects. Livestock has been
identified as one such sector. Recent livelihoods research (see the LADDER
website www.odg.uea.ac.uk/ladder)provide empirical evidence that pathways
out of poverty involve a cumulative process in which asset levels are
raised, asset substitution occur, and vulnerability and risks are reduced by
diversifying assets and activities across economic sectors and sub-sectors.
Most importantly, the livestock sector presents an attractive growth
opportunity in many parts of the developing world, given the increasing
demand for livestock products expected in the coming decades. Because of its
diverse contributions, livestock play multiple roles in successful
livelihood strategies. 

 

However, there are several challenges and opportunities facing research on
the effective use of livestock in poverty reduction. A major issue is using
our understanding of how livestock can reduce poverty to better target
investments in research and development. We know that livestock play
important and very varied roles in the lives of many poor people. We often
state that livestock form a component of the livelihoods of 70% of the
world's poor. But what precisely does this mean?  How will improvements in
feeding, management, health and breeding practises, as well as new
institutional arrangements and policies brought about as a result of
research, affect poverty levels? And which particular intervention -
targeted at which particular role of livestock - will have the greatest
impact on our ultimate goal? And what will be the mechanisms involved? 

 

In addition to the need to understand how livestock contribute to poverty
reduction is the need to understand how major changes in the world, such as
population growth, globalisation, climate change and market diversification,
will affect these mechanisms. 

 

The challenges are associated with three specific poverty reduction
pathways. The pathways out of poverty relate to three major groupings of
contributions that livestock research might make to poverty reduction. These
are: 

*         Secure the capital assets (natural, social, physical, human,
financial) of poor people who keep livestock, who consume livestock
products, market livestock and livestock products, and who work as wage
labourers with livestock, by reducing the risks they face through
constraints in feeding, management, breeding and health issues. In some
settings, this may be not so much a pathway out of poverty, but rather a
buffering mechanism to prevent decline into greater poverty.  

*         Reduce the constraints experienced by the poor to the
intensification of agricultural systems in which livestock play a key role. 

*         Enhance the opportunities of the poor to participate in
livestock-related markets. 

 

Within each pathway, research opportunities can be clustered according to
three general contributions to the innovation process. These are:

*         Adoption of research products, including existing knowledge,
technologies and policies

*         Improvement or adaptation of existing tools, methods and
approaches to make them better or more applicable to the particular
circumstances of poor livestock keepers

*         Development of new technologies, tools and approaches

 

The major opportunities for international research to better target research
are: 

o        The characterisation and quantification of linkages between
livestock development and poverty reduction through strategic studies in
target production systems; 

o        The application of predictive output-orientated studies to evaluate
the effects of poverty reduction interventions that exploit these linkages; 

o        The development of ex ante impact assessment models to determine
the effect on these linkages and interventions of extraneous factors such as
climate change and urbanisation; 

o        The use of research products to inform research and development
policies and investments.