22/05/2024
*BUILDING RESILIENT FEED AND FODDER SYSTEMS TO BOOST AFRICA'S LIVESTOCK INDUSTRY*
In Africa, livestock contributes significantly to the food supply and nutritional security, serves as a source of income and a means for capital accumulation , generates employment, and supplies inputs and services for crop production. It is an important source of raw materials for the agro industry sector.
The effects of the recent and ongoing conflicts, the global 3 Cs ( Covid 19, Climate Change and the Conflict in Eastern Euerope) on African
feed and fodder systems have a debilitating impact on the growth of the livestock sector on the continent.
This evidence base is critical to shaping coordinated action in response to feed and fodder shortages that have led to a huge loss of livestock (over 8.9 million livestock in the greater horn of Africa region alone). It drove up prizes of high nutritive livestock sourced foods, making them hardly accessible to some sections of the population that need them the most.
Feed costs 60-70% of the total cost of animal production. The crises have exposed significant weaknesses and vulnerabilities in the African feed and fodder input and supply.
The Reselient African Feed and Fodder Project is an initiative of the African Union aimed to assist member States to understand and mitigate against the effects of the recent and ongoing global crisis on the African feed and Fodder systems.
The project's objective is to respond to the worsened food and nutrition security coupled by the recent crises that have negatively affected African feed and fodder systems.
The ongoing workshop, which is a congregation of various stakeholders in the livestock industry, therefore endeavours to give birth to resilient African feed and fodder systems, which will augment the continent's livestock industry.
: Everywhere, Everyday
