Opinion: Tailor climate-smart livestock solutions to African context

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Pastoralists walking with their herd of cattle in Kenya. Photo by: Kabir Dhanji / ILRI Livestock CRP / CC BY-NC-ND
African livestock production systems are not homogenous, and taking a one-size-fits-all approach to emissions reduction will not work. The global community needs to be more nuanced in our approach to transitioning to sustainable, low-emitting, and climate-resilient livestock on the continent.
With global climate talks increasingly acknowledging food and agriculture as a critical component, the livestock industry and diets that include animal-source foods find themselves in the crosshairs of the debate.
Animal agriculture is estimated to be responsible for some 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, 44% of which are methane.
The tendency is to treat all forms of livestock production as equally responsible for these emissions, although there is some evidence that global calculations may overestimate the contribution from livestock in Africa and underestimate the potential benefits for nutrition, livelihoods, and biodiversity.
As the recently appointed director general of the International Livestock Research Institute, I see a very different livestock debate playing out in which countries weigh up how best to unlock the many possibilities that livestock can offer for sustainable development across the continent.