Healthy people, animals and ecosystems for global food and nutritional security

5th biennial conference of the International Association for Ecology and Health

Montreal, Canada, 11−15 August 2014

Jimmy Smith Director General ILRI

With Delia Grace Fred Unger Hung Nguyen Purvi Mehta Bernard Bett Shirley Tarawali

The argument

• Finding ways to better feed and nourish a population of some 10 billion people by 2050 daunts today’s agricultural scientists, livestock scientists in particular

• We need to produce much more animal-source foods and more sustainably − without hurting our environment or threatening public health

The argument (2)

• The health of people, animals and ecologies depend utterly on each other − and in ways we only partially yet understand

• Feeding our growing world sustainably requires breaking down walls between the livestock, health, environmental sectors

• Failure to use holistic approaches will fail to find win-win-win solutions for all three sectors

• Disaster in any one sector impinges on the others

Some definitions

• Food security ‘All people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food prefer-ences for an active and healthy life’ − WHO 1996

• As commonly used, > ‘food security’ = food quantity > ‘nutritional security’ = food quality

Food security and livestock production

Is global food security and sustainable food production possible?

How will the world feed itself sustainably by the time the population stabilizes about 2050?

• 60% more food than is produced now will be needed

• 75% of this must come from producing more food from the same amount of land

• The higher production must be achieved while reducing poverty and addressing environmental, social and health concerns

• This greater production will have to be achieved with temperatures that may be 2−4 degrees warmer than today’s

Gains in meat consumption in developing countries are outpacing those of developed

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

1980 1990 2002 2015 2030

Mill

ion m

etr

ic t

onnes

developing

developed

FAO 2006

FAO 2012

Based on anticipated changes in absolute tonnes of product from 2000 to 2030

Percentage growth in demand for livestock products: 2000−2030

Huge increases over 2005/7 amounts of cereals, dairy and meat will be needed by 2050

From 2bn−3bn tonnes cereals each year

From 664m−1bn tonnes dairy each year

From 258m−460m tonnes meat each year

Much of the world’s livestock food comes from small mixed farms in developing countries

Herrero et al. 2009

Developing-country mixed crop-livestock systems, most of them smallholders, supply much of the world’s livestock products

What’s special about animal/smallholder food?

• 90% of animal products are produced and consumed in the same country or region

• Most are produced by smallholders

• Over 70% of livestock products are sold ‘informally’

• 500 million smallholders produce 80% of the developing world’s food

• 43% of the agricultural workforce is female

Various sources: BMGF, FAO and ILRI

Smallholders still dominate livestock production in many countries

Region (definition of ‘smallholder’)

% production by smallholder livestock farms

Beef Chicken meat

Sheep/goat meat

Milk Pork Eggs

East Africa (≤ 6 milking animals)

60-90

Bangladesh (< 3ha land)

65 77 78 65 77

India (< 2ha land)

75 92 92 69 71

Vietnam (small scale)

80

Philippines (backyard)

50 35

Smallholder livestock keepers are competitive

East African dairy • 1 million Kenyan smallholders keep Africa’s largest dairy herd • Ugandans are the world’s lowest-cost milk producers

Vietnam pig industry • 95% of production is by producers with less than 100 pigs • Industrial pig production could grow to meet

no more than 12% of national supply in the next 10 years

IFCN, Omiti et al. 2004, ILRI 2012

Strong growth in developing-country crop-livestock systems presents opportunities

• Of the world’s almost 1 billion smallholder livestock producers, it’s expected that: ﹣One-third will find alternate livelihoods ﹣One-third may or may not remain part of

the transformation of the livestock sector ﹣One-third will succeed at market-oriented

livestock livelihoods

• The coming transitions and consolidations of today’s smallholder crop-livestock systems present opportunities to increase food production while benefiting the environment, socio-economic equity and human health

Healthy people, animals and ecosystems

• Our health depends on our food and nutritional security

• Our food and nutritional security (as well as our health) in turn depends on the health of our animals and our agro-ecosystems

The diverse ‘health’ aspects of food security

Food and

nutritional

security

Healthy

people

Healthy

animals

Healthy

eco-

systems

Balanced human diets

Food waste reduced

Judicious use of natural resources

Minimal pollution

Food safe for human consumption

Zoonotic diseases stopped or controlled

More productive animals

More animal- source foods

Environmental services protected

Food waste reduced

Reduced use of natural resources

Reduced GHG emissions per unit of commodity

Healthy people

Nutritional divides among 7 billion people today

hungrypeople

vulnerabletofoodinsecurity

inadequatediets

overconsumers

balanceddiets

Malnutrition is costly. FAO estimates the costs of malnutrition

to be as high as US$3.5 trillion a year

The double burden: hunger & obesity

• 2.1 billion people suffer from over-weight or obesity

• Two-thirds of obese people live in poor countries

• No country has had significant decreases in obesity in the last 33 years

Underweight females Overweight females

Ethiopia

Nigeria

South Africa

The ‘Goldilocks approach’ to animal-source foods

Not too little

Not too much

Just right!

As countries get rich, more food is wasted

• Worldwide 1/3 of food, worth $1 trillion, is lost or wasted • Half the food wasted in rich countries is fit for human consumption

FAO 2011

Healthy animals

Steinfeld et al. 2006

Big productivity gaps, largely due to poor animal health, persist between rich and poor countries

Some developing-country regions have gaps of up to 430% in milk

A few major diseases cause most losses in Africa and South Asia

Estimates from BMGF

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Bill

ion

$ lo

st y

earl

y

South Asia

Africa

NB: No data exists for PPR in South Asia but it is known to be widespread in the region

Food safety in developing countries

• Most milk, meat and eggs are sold in informal markets

• Women predominate food processing & sale

• Most food in wet markets had high levels of standards

• Food-borne disease is a major cause of diarrhea

0 50 100

Lower resp. infect.

HIV/AIDS

Diarrheal diseases

Stroke

Ischaemic heart disease

Malaria

Preterm birth comp.

Tuberculosis

Birth asphysia

Protein/energy malnut.

Deaths per 100,000 population

Top 10 causes of death in low income countries (2012)

Most (75%) emerging diseases come from animals

ILRI report to DFID: Mapping of Poverty and Likely Zoonoses Hotspots, 2012

Emerging zoonotic disease events, 1940−2012

Almost all losses are in developing countries

A deadly dozen zoonotic diseases each year kill 2.2 million people and sicken 2.4 billion

0

20000

40000

60000

80000

100000

120000

140000

Annual deaths from all zoonoses Annual deaths from single-agent zoonoses

Greatest burden of zoonoses falls on one billion poor livestock keepers

Map by ILRI, from original in a report to DFID: Mapping of Poverty and Likely Zoonoses Hotspots, 2012

Period Cost

(conservative estimates)

6 outbreaks excluding SARS − Nipah virus (Malaysia) − West Nile fever (USA) − HPAI (Asia, Europe) − BSE (US) − Rift Valley fever (Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia) − BSE (UK) costs 1997−09 only

1998−2009 38.7

SARS

2002−2004 41.5

Total over 12 years 1998−2009

80.2

Costs of emerging zoonotic disease outbreaks (US$ billion)

World Bank 2012

Giving an annual average of US$6.7 billion

199

8

2007

Diseases from poor countries threaten global industries (ASF & $150 billion world pork)

Healthy ecosystems

Livestock and ecosystem health

• Livestock emit greenhouse gases but improving production efficiencies is key to reducing their C footprints

• Livestock feed can compete with staple crops and biofuels for water and other natural resources but – Pastures can help store carbon – Animals in smallholder systems consume crop wastes

and natural pasture, not grain

• Manure can pollute land and water but is an important source of organic matter for soil fertility

As much as half of the agricultural GHG emissions come from animals

Herrero et al. 2013

GHG per kg of animal protein produced varies hugely: Big opportunities to mitigate

A global water crisis

• 2 billion people lack access

• Demand is growing; freshwater is getting scarcer

• 70% of total freshwater use is for agriculture, of which 31% is for livestock

Ten science

contributions

Option 1: Balance consumption of animal-source foods

• Ensure undernourished (poor) people have regular access to modest quantities of animal-source foods for their nutrition and health

• Help over-nourished (rich) people whose health is at risk to reduce their consumption of animal-source foods

Option 2: Reduce food waste

• Reduce waste of perishable milk, meat and egg products (mostly from farm to market)

• Find safe ways to utilize foods contaminated by aflatoxins as animal feed

Option 3: Make animal-source foods safer and fairer

• Simple and cheap interventions can lead to substantial improvements in food safety

• Branding & certification of milk vendors in Kenya led to improved milk safety & saves the national economy $33 million per year

• Training butchers in Nigeria led to better standards: Cost = $9 per butcher Savings = $780 per butcher per year from reduced cost of illness among consumers

Option 4: Employ One-Health approaches to control zoonoses

• Control zoonoses in animal hosts - Median benefit to cost ratio = 4:1

• Make timely responses to zoonotic outbreaks − Can reduce costs by 90%

Adapted from IOM 2009

Option 5: Improve the health of farm animals

• Better control animal diseases, which cause 1/3 of the productivity gaps in developing countries losses worth 37% of the livestock sector value

• Ensure that unhealthy livestock do not make for unsafe livestock foods in the markets

1 of 4 calves & lambs and 7 of 10 chickens, die from disease each year in Africa

Vaccines save lives of animals that both increase food security and reduce poverty

Option 6: Develop and improve livestock vaccines

An bodytechnologies

Vaccinetechnologies

Cellulartechnologies

Diagnos ctechnologies

Genomictechnologies

Contagio

usb

ovin

e

pleu

ropneu

monia

EastCoastfe

ver

African

swinefever

Consor aforresearch&productdevelopmentandcapacitydevelopment

PrivatesectorGALVmedCRPsNARSInter-govagencies

Improvedvaccinesanddiagnos ctools

Pested

esp

esru

minants

RiValleyfe

ver

Infec ousdiseaseresearch:basic&applied

ILVAC–avaccinepla orm

Option 7: Provide innovations & incentives for managing disease

• Develop and test technologies • Build on local capacity

Novel lateral flow assays for cysticercosis

Option 8: Improve the efficiency/productivity of smallholders

Improve livestock efficiency to produce more product per unit of input − land, water, labour, capital − and causing less environmental harm

More livestock foods mean more food and better nutrition for the poor

Developing countries can mitigate GHG emissions without moving to industrial grain-fed systems:

e.g. through improved efficiencies such as better feeds and feeding systems

Option 9: Provide improved feeds for fewer GHG

Option 10: Provide improved feed that uses less water

30% reduction in water needed for 1 litre of milk by improving sorghum stalk digestibility by 5%

ILRI use of Ecohealth Approaches: Examples

Predicting the risk of H7N9 infections

in live poultry markets in China(Nature Communications 2014)

Conclusions

• More food, especially animal-source food, must be produced in new ways that don’t harm our health or environment

• Human, animal and ecological health are inextricably linked and together form a foundation for food and nutritional security

• Research is needed not only to produce new knowledge and technologies but also to join up diverse disciplinary and sector expertise in new kinds of productive partnerships