Errr, is this the frontline?

Growing demand for meat products from a burgeoning urban market is pushing a new force through West Africa, as in other parts of the world: the livestock revolution. The pressure this puts on scarce land resources lifting is raised by similar pressures for increasing crop production. The ingenious way for local farmers to tackle this is to handle both demands at once, in what are called integrated crop-livestock systems . Among the features of these systems are better appreciation and use of crop residues for animal feeds, more use of animal traction, and settling of pastoral/transhumant producers to engage in agro-pastoral production. Steering these systems towards sustainable production for improved livelihoods and natural resource management in West Africa was the topic of a co-seminar held in Ibadan, Nigeria, in November 2001. The co-organising partners were CIRDES of Burkina Faso, CTA and the international research centres ILRI, IITA, ICRISAT and WARDA. More than 70 participants from throughout Africa and support agencies looked at how these systems would adapt to urbanisation, population growth and globalisation. Their predictions at the frontline of the revolution: farms will get smaller, and then amalgamate as people migrate to urban centres, and there will be a need to intensify animal feeds and the technologies which enhance land productivity. This thrust will be driven by market forces, said the meeting, even though none were in their midst: one participant regretted the absence of traders from the group. Real repositories of knowledge, she called them. Indeed.Growing demand for meat products from a burgeoning urban market is pushing a new force through West Africa, as in other parts of the world: the livestock revolution. The pressure this puts on scarce land resources lifting is raised by similar..