- CIHEAM Zaragoza strengthens cooperation with a course delivered to professionals from four continents
Professionals in the animal production sector from four continents have gathered at CIHEAM Zaragoza from 12 to 16 December to take part in a course on modelling, measuring and mitigating the environmental impact of livestock production systems. This initiative reveals growing interest from the sector in moving towards more sustainable production models.
Anne Mottet, livestock development officer from the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) and lecturer on the course, shares her reflections on participation: “We have organized previous editions on similar topics and we are getting more applications from participants every year and from more and more countries. I have the feeling that the scientific and technical level of the participants is increasing. There is more interest in the topic and they are becoming very good at this topic of mitigating the environmental impact in livestock farming”.
The degree of interaction between professionals participating in the course shows the advances that the sector is making to mitigate its environmental impact and at the same time increasing its capacity to deal with climate change. This is a challenge for which cooperation through training is a necessary tool.
Fernando Estellés, researcher from the Polytechnic University of Valencia and scientific coordinator of the course, talks about the training: “I think that the most enriching part of this course is the exchange of experiences, learning what has been done in other places, to be able to export certain technologies or resources. We all help each other, learn from others’ successes and mistakes and that takes us all forward”.
Environmental impact is hard to summarize in one figure
According to estimations from the FAO, the value chains of the livestock sector produce 14. 5 % of all the anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. This is the closest figure available to date on their environmental impact. But for this expert there is still a great deal of work ahead to be able to get a full picture.
Estellés goes on to say: “For many years we have been trying to determine exactly what the real environmental impact of the livestock sector is. As good scientists do, we are asking more and more questions, and now we have even more questions than answers. We are covering ground that is difficult to assess. Even though we can talk about the carbon footprint or greenhouse gas emissions, livestock farming has other very positive impacts on the social fabric, and on nutrition and food supply that are difficult to assess, but nonetheless they still exist”.
Each production system requires a different mitigation strategy
In environmental impact mitigation in livestock production, we have to take into account the different animal species and production systems. Extensive grazing systems may, for example, lead to land degradation or loss of biodiversity, whereas large-scale industrial production systems such as poultry and swine production can cause manure management or energy consumption problems.
Mottet explains: “In extensive livestock systems such as in the Sahel or Central Asia, environmental impact can be limited by avoiding land degradation and we can help production to improve in terms of avoiding waste and loss, and by improving animal health. In other systems, for example in Europe or North America, we can avoid feed-food competition”.
43 professionals from 19 countries
The course, held at CIHEAM Zaragoza, was attended by 43 professionals from 19 countries (Algeria, Argentina, Bangladesh, Chile, Egypt, Germany, Iran, Italy, Morocco, Nigeria, Portugal, Rwanda, Spain, Switzerland, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, United States and Uruguay).
The course was organized by CIHEAM Zaragoza, together with the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases (GRA) and the FAO, and with the collaboration of the Red Remedia network. Its main objective was to provide basic methods to assess the environmental impact of different livestock production systems.
