The Future of Tropical Livestock Systems (1.2 ECTS)

Course description

Globally, tropical livestock production systems need to adapt to climate change, growing demand for animal source food, and resource scarcity. Transitions to sustainable future systems are guided by a wide variety of drivers and demands, be they economic (such as profitability and farmer livelihoods), socio-political (such as inclusion of smallholders and food safety), or environmental (such as nutrient cycling and avoiding feed-food competition). Understanding these drivers and the nature of system transitions is essential for the design of meaningful interventions. Especially as transitions depend on the values, roles, priorities, and commitments of stakeholders involved.

Course objectives

This course will explore the web of drivers that affect transition of tropical livestock systems towards a state in which they are better able to do what is expected: contribute to healthy diets, offer income and livelihood to farmers, and contribute to efficient use of resources. It will also help you in selecting methodologies for charting out and evaluating pathways to sustainable future tropical livestock systems in ways that match bottom-up and top down planning processes, address multiple demands (political, environmental, social, technological, legal, economic), and are sensitive to the plurality of values encountered. 

Learning goals

Course participants will have increased abilities to

1. To explore the technical and social complexity of defining sustainable transition pathways for tropical livestock systems, incorporating various roles of livestock and choosing appropriate system levels for analysis and planning.
2. To navigate the various people-profit-planet sustainability objectives for livestock systems, such as food production, market participation, climate change, biodiversity, circularity, and feed-food competition.
3. To identify the technical, social and institutional changes required for facilitating system transition, such as technology development and adoption, financing, and policies.

To explore the applicability of a variety of methods for tropical livestock systems, including modelling at various system levels, big data, and artificial intelligence.