Livestock production should be intensified in “relevant locations” to achieve zero hunger, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations (UN) has recommended.
The FAO said that livestock serves as a “crucial” source of high-quality protein and essential micronutrients, and is “vital” for “normal” development and good health.
This is especially the case within vulnerable or remote communities. By 2030, an estimated 590.3 million people will suffer hunger, according to a recent FAO report.
The FAO launched its report Achieving SDG 2 without breaching the 1.5C threshold: A Global Roadmap at the 28th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP28).
The report includes 120 actions to achieve the goal of zero hunger across 10 domains. These include livestock, crops, forests and wetlands, soil and water, and clean energy.
Livestock production
The FAO said that actions targeting the livestock sector should prioritise enhancing the efficiency of production, particularly among low-productivity producers.
The focus should aim at reducing resource usage – land, water and energy – per unit of consumable products by implementing improved livestock management practices.
Actions in relation to livestock recommended by the FAO to achieve zero hunger are as follows:
- Improve livestock productivity through better genetics;
- Intensify livestock production in relevant locations and improve feeding practices;
- Protect animal health through improved veterinary services and animal disease surveillance;
- Change the feed industry and promote new sources of proteins for feed;
- Restore degraded pasture and improve grazing management practices;
- Change the livestock population to match not only nutritional needs but also environmental opportunities and constraints;
- Make changes towards integrated production regimes such as an integrated silvopastoral production regime to reduce deforestation and accelerate afforestation, or crop livestock;
- Improve the adoption of certification and labelling schemes that contribute to promotion and incentivisation of low-carbon practices and zero-deforestation;
- Change public livestock farm policies to be realigned with previous objectives:
- Subsidies encouraging overgrazing, excessive use of antibiotics or production in environmentally inefficient locations should be phased out and replaced by support promoting development and adoption of improved breeds, use of adequate and innovative feed, and implementation of integrated production systems.
Livestock directly contributes to 26% of agri-food system emissions. Without interventions and productivity gains, meeting increased demand is likely to increase emissions by over 40%.
However, there’s a significant disparity in carbon footprint, with emissions ranging from 295kg carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent (eq) per kg of protein for beef to 31kg CO2eq/kg for eggs.
In the case of milk, emissions per unit of fat and protein corrected milk vary greatly among countries, ranging from below 2kg CO2eq to over 20kg CO2eq in less productive countries.
The FAO states that this disparity in carbon footprint of production offers large opportunities to increase productivity and reducing emissions through technology diffusion.
Low-carbon investments should give priority to low-productivity systems, particularly ones that yield less than 2,000kg of fat and protein corrected milk per year, the report states.
Global hunger
In 2022, 738.9 million people faced hunger, 2.4 billion were moderately or severely food insecure, and over 3.1 billion lacked access to healthy diets, the FAO said.
The UN’s main goals remain the elimination of chronic undernourishment by 2030. The Covid-19 pandemic added 120 million to the chronically undernourished globally.
The number of people that could not afford healthy diets should be reduced by 50% between 2020 and 2040, and by 2050 everyone should consume healthy diets, the FAO said.
