A food security perspective to livestock and the environment
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Today, 850 million people go hungry or suffer from malnutrition. In order to meet the minimum requirements of a growing population, food production will need to double over the next 30 years. Yet the natural resources required to produce this additional food - such as soil, water and bio-diversity - are finite and vulnerable to degradation. The Plan of Action, endorsed by the Heads of State and their governments at the World Food Summit in November 1996, assigned a guiding role to FAO in ad dressing food security worldwide. The Rome declaration identifies poverty and environmental degradation as the main causes of food insecurity. The Heads of State and their governments also recognized the need for urgent action to combat natural resource degradation, including desertification and erosion of biological diversity. Poverty eradication and food security must be achieved without putting additional stress on natural resources. In many situation, therefore, food security and natural res ource protection go together. The issue is to what extent may the resource and environmental constraints impinge on the prospects for increasing food supplies and assuring access to food for all, the very essence of food security? And further: Can the potential for further gains towards global food security be maintained for future generations, the very essence of sustainability? Within this broad context, this paper addresses the interactions, both positive and negative, between livestock and the environment from a food security perspective, i.e. that of rural and urban poor in low-income food-deficit countries (LIFDC). Concern for the state of the environment and the degradation and dwindling of natural resources raises the questions: What is the role of livestock in enhancing or compromising food security, now and in future? What are the trade-offs between livestock production and environmental objectives?