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Zoonotic diseases have caused people much devastation over the years. Photo: Pixabay

Global urgency: Why consuming less meat is key

15 Aug 2022
The upcoming Senegal summit is a follow-up to the 2015 inaugural edition during which the “Feed Africa” strategy for Agricultural Transformation (2016-2025) in Africa was proposed. Photo: Supplied/FoodForAfrika.com

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Contextually, an average cow yields about 10 kilograms of dung per day, which corresponds to 1 000 litre biogas, equivalent to 2.14 kWh (electricity) while 1 000 litres of biomethane equals 10 kWh. Photo: Supplied/FoodForAfrika.com

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    The upcoming Senegal summit is a follow-up to the 2015 inaugural edition during which the “Feed Africa” strategy for Agricultural Transformation (2016-2025) in Africa was proposed. Photo: Supplied/FoodForAfrika.com

    Food production summit to open in Senegal

    Tomato losses: Solar-powered cold storage technology is of prime significance in Africa’s efforts to cut post-harvest tomato losses and attain food security, as outlined in the African Union Malabo Declaration. Photo: Supplied/FoodForAfrika.com

    Tanzania’s tomato harvest goes to waste

    Contextually, an average cow yields about 10 kilograms of dung per day, which corresponds to 1 000 litre biogas, equivalent to 2.14 kWh (electricity) while 1 000 litres of biomethane equals 10 kWh. Photo: Supplied/FoodForAfrika.com

    Biogas: ‘Cow dung can keep the lights on in SA’

    The Maputo Port is one of a number of harbours on the continent undergoing a changes to ready it for expansion. Photo: Wikicommons Media/Supplied

    ‘Ports race’ in Africa cuts both ways

    Mohamed Dhicis (19) started a beekeeping business in his hometown of Belet Weyne, in central Somalia. He is supported by an entrepreneurship develop programme of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) in collaboration with the Somali Ministry of Commerce and Industries. Photo: Supplied/United Nations

    Bees and tractors: Agri leads the way in Somalia

    “EOS_SAT-1 is already fueled, configured for launch and integrated onto the upper stage of the rocket, waiting for the last remaining thing ¬– launch.” This notice and picture was posted on the Twitter page of aerospace start-up Dragonfly Aerospace. Photo: Twitter

    African agri satellite a world first

    Women attend a UNFPA-supported integrated community health outreach session on prevention and response to gender-based violence. Lokapararai village, Turkana county, Kenya. Photo: Supplied/UNFPA Kenya

    Drought puts Kenyan newborns at risk

    Child labour has increased exponentially over the course of the past four years, according to UNICEF and ILO. Photo: Wikkimedia Commons

    ‘Children exploited’ on Malawi tobacco farms

    5 ways tech is transforming agrifood systems

    5 ways tech is transforming agrifood systems

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    Namibia's Popular Democratic Movement party has tabled a motion of insurance for farmers, that will compensate for the loss of livestock due to conflict with wildlife. Photo: Supplied/Food For Mzansi

    Computer model to ease farmer-wildlife conflict

    It started with a handful of trees on her family farm. Today Wezi Mzumara is breaking new ground as a woman chocolate maker in Malawi. Photo: Supplied/FoodForAfrika.com

    Meet Malawian chocolate maker Wezi Mzumara

    Nature-based biopesticides are now offering a safer alternative to locust control. ©FAO/Ismail Taxta/Arete

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    Planting his first crops was like throwing dice for Lesotho small-scale farmer Leutsoa Khobotlo. He felt like he won that game of chance. Photo: Supplied/FoodForAfrika.com

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    The upcoming Senegal summit is a follow-up to the 2015 inaugural edition during which the “Feed Africa” strategy for Agricultural Transformation (2016-2025) in Africa was proposed. Photo: Supplied/FoodForAfrika.com

    Food production summit to open in Senegal

    Tomato losses: Solar-powered cold storage technology is of prime significance in Africa’s efforts to cut post-harvest tomato losses and attain food security, as outlined in the African Union Malabo Declaration. Photo: Supplied/FoodForAfrika.com

    Tanzania’s tomato harvest goes to waste

    Contextually, an average cow yields about 10 kilograms of dung per day, which corresponds to 1 000 litre biogas, equivalent to 2.14 kWh (electricity) while 1 000 litres of biomethane equals 10 kWh. Photo: Supplied/FoodForAfrika.com

    Biogas: ‘Cow dung can keep the lights on in SA’

    The Maputo Port is one of a number of harbours on the continent undergoing a changes to ready it for expansion. Photo: Wikicommons Media/Supplied

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    Mohamed Dhicis (19) started a beekeeping business in his hometown of Belet Weyne, in central Somalia. He is supported by an entrepreneurship develop programme of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) in collaboration with the Somali Ministry of Commerce and Industries. Photo: Supplied/United Nations

    Bees and tractors: Agri leads the way in Somalia

    “EOS_SAT-1 is already fueled, configured for launch and integrated onto the upper stage of the rocket, waiting for the last remaining thing ¬– launch.” This notice and picture was posted on the Twitter page of aerospace start-up Dragonfly Aerospace. Photo: Twitter

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    Women attend a UNFPA-supported integrated community health outreach session on prevention and response to gender-based violence. Lokapararai village, Turkana county, Kenya. Photo: Supplied/UNFPA Kenya

    Drought puts Kenyan newborns at risk

    Child labour has increased exponentially over the course of the past four years, according to UNICEF and ILO. Photo: Wikkimedia Commons

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    5 ways tech is transforming agrifood systems

    5 ways tech is transforming agrifood systems

  • Changemakers
    • All
    • Agribusiness
    • Agripreneurs
    • Farmers
    • Innovation
    Namibia's Popular Democratic Movement party has tabled a motion of insurance for farmers, that will compensate for the loss of livestock due to conflict with wildlife. Photo: Supplied/Food For Mzansi

    Computer model to ease farmer-wildlife conflict

    It started with a handful of trees on her family farm. Today Wezi Mzumara is breaking new ground as a woman chocolate maker in Malawi. Photo: Supplied/FoodForAfrika.com

    Meet Malawian chocolate maker Wezi Mzumara

    Nature-based biopesticides are now offering a safer alternative to locust control. ©FAO/Ismail Taxta/Arete

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    What started as an informal Facebook group has become a vibrant online market community in East Africa called Mkulima Young.

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    Greenify Global, a youth environmental conservation movement, works in schools in Zomba, Malawi, teaching children and creating food gardens according to permaculture principles. Photo: Supplied/FoodForAfrika.com

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    Woman Farmer Kerotse Lekabe (middle) with her workers in Pella, North West, where she farms with vegetables on six hectares of land. Photo- Supplied/FoodForAfrika.com

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    Support to improve women land ownership delivers life-changing benefits for women farmers in Tanzania, like Mariam Tungu, from Singida’s Ikungi district in central Tanzania. Photo: Supplied/FoodForAfrika.com

    Women land ownership changes destinies

    Planting his first crops was like throwing dice for Lesotho small-scale farmer Leutsoa Khobotlo. He felt like he won that game of chance. Photo: Supplied/FoodForAfrika.com

    Luck and dedication lifts Lesotho farmer

  • Food Security
    • All
    • Climate Change
    • Crops
    • Food Trends
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    Perennial rice being harvested near Lake Victoria in Uganda. Photo: Supplied/FoodForAfrika.com

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  • Lifestyle
    • All
    • Food Health
    • Trends
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Global urgency: Why consuming less meat is key

by The Conversation
15 Aug 2022
in Food Trends
Reading Time: 9 mins read
A A
Zoonotic diseases have caused people much devastation over the years. Photo: Pixabay

Zoonotic diseases have caused people much devastation over the years. Photo: Pixabay

The world is at greater risk of infectious diseases that originate in wildlife because people are encroaching on tropical areas of wilderness to feed livestock and hunt wild animals for meat.

Tropical deforestation and over-hunting are also at the root of global warming and mass species extinction. 

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Devastating pandemics like HIV/AIDS, Ebola and COVID-19 are likely to have originated in wildlife. This serves as a reminder of how human impacts on the environment interlink with disease as well as with climate change and biodiversity loss. 

Food as a solution

Food, then, is one key to solving a lot of problems.

We recently conducted a thorough review of the scientific literature to explore whether outbreaks of infectious diseases originating in wildlife could be linked to ecosystem degradation caused by the global food system. 

The review revealed two ways to tackle the interrelated crises of wildlife-origin diseases, global warming and mass species extinction. The first is a global transition to more plant-based diets, so as to limit agricultural encroachment on tropical wildlands. The second is to curb demand for wild meat in tropical cities. 

Contact between humans and wildlife, livestock

Closer to the Equator, biodiversity becomes richer. These tropical regions have historically seen less development and are particularly rich in wildlife and carbon stocks. But in recent decades agricultural frontiers have expanded rapidly into tropical forests.

The expansion of farmland into tropical forests may be increasing contact between wildlife, people and livestock. This in turn may enhance the likelihood of pathogens jumping from one to the other. 

Such habitat destruction also has a negative impact on large herbivores and predators, as they lose sources of food and breeding grounds. This can lead to an increase in “generalist” species of rodents, bats, birds and primates that are better adapted to human-modified landscapes. Some of these species are known “reservoirs” for infectious diseases of livestock and humans. Intensive livestock farms further increase the likelihood that domesticated animals become intermediate hosts for wildlife-origin diseases, often amplifying the risk of human contagion. 

In addition, if the global human population continues to grow and adopt diets rich in livestock source foods, it’s unlikely that global warming can be kept well below 2°C. It’s also unlikely that the rate of species extinction can be slowed. This is because livestock production has the highest environmental footprint of all foods in terms of land and water use, greenhouse gas emissions and pollution of terrestrial and aquatic systems.

ALSO READ: Nigeria’s food inflation: winners, losers and a possible solution

Flexitarian diets the answer?

It’s not realistic or even desirable to expect everyone to become a vegan (following a completely plant-based diet). But flexitarian diets could feed the growing world population without further expanding farmland into tropical wildlands, and with reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. These diets consist of large amounts of plant-based foods (including vegetable proteins like pulses, nuts and seeds), modest amounts of fish, poultry, eggs and dairy and small quantities of red and processed meat.

Together with conversion to environmentally friendly or organic farming and cutbacks in food losses and wastage, diets low in livestock source foods are then a key component of a sustainable global food system. They have other health benefits too, such as reducing obesity, diabetes, heart disease and colorectal cancer.

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Measures available to governments, civil society and businesses to promote a reduction in the global consumption of livestock source foods are illustrated in the figure below.

An infographic showing strategies to promote a shift towards more plant-based (flexitarian) diets.
Strategies to promote a shift towards more plant-based (flexitarian) diets. Illustrator: Emily Wright, taken from Wegner et al. 2022, eClinicalMedicine

Governments tend to dodge such interventions for fear of public backlash. But the public expects government leadership in tackling such a complex challenge.

Curbing wild meat demand in tropical cities

In the tropical forests of Africa, Asia and South America, over the past 30 years hunting pressure to supply nearby cities has radically increased. High levels of wild meat trade may enhance the risk of disease transmission from wildlife to humans because it’s hard for governments to enforce biosecurity measures on hunting grounds and at abattoirs, food markets and restaurants. 

Without effective law enforcement and sustained consumer campaigns to reduce urban demand, bans may fail to discourage trade. In fact, consumers’ strong preferences for wild meat mean that they may continue to purchase it despite price increases induced by a ban. This would boost black markets. 

In urban areas, legume, fish and livestock source proteins are easily available at affordable prices. But some indigenous people and rural communities rely on hunted meat for a vital part of their nutrition and income. Outright bans would undermine their rights to hunt sustainably within their territories.

Bans could also shift wild meat trade to illegal, unregulated channels where less attention is paid to biosecurity measures necessary to prevent contagion from wildlife-borne diseases.

The ideal is then to contain tropical wild meat hunting and trade by curbing demand in urban areas while supporting hunting rights and biosecurity measures among communities in remote subsistence areas. 

Avoiding biohazards from animal source foods

Interventions in rural communities should provide wild meat hunters, traders and butchers with training in inexpensive biosecurity measures they can easily adopt to avoid infection from contact with wild animals. Biosecurity measures should also be extended to livestock and wildlife farms, abattoirs, food markets and restaurants, as illustrated in the figure below. 

Infographic showing biosecurity measures for rural communities and wet markets.
Biosecurity measures for rural communities and wet markets. Illustrator: Emily Wright, taken from Wegner et al. 2022, eClinicalMedicine

Other physical distancing measures should also be taken on farms, pastures and live animal markets. These include fencing and reducing livestock densities to minimise contact with wild herbivores, planting fruit trees visited by bats at a distance from livestock sites, and limiting the number of animals on sale in live animal markets.

Different strategies across different regions

People in different regions rely on animals for food to different degrees. Efforts to reduce livestock production should focus on curbing excessive consumption in wealthier countries and the expanding metropoles of developing countries. 

In the poorer rural areas of developing countries, home gardening and smallholder livestock development programmes can help decrease malnutrition, but with less environmental impact. 

People who live where it’s hard to grow crops – such as pastoralists in arid rangelands and hunter-gatherers in tropical rainforests and the Arctic – will instead continue to rely conspicuously on animals for nutrition. Nonetheless, the low environmental impacts of their subsistence way of living are not comparable to those of dense and better-off urban populations.

Change is urgent

The incidence of infectious diseases originating in wild animals is high and may be increasing. This may be yet another sign of the way in which the degradation of ecosystems is undermining the capacity of the planet to sustain human health and wellbeing.

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Dietary shifts away from livestock source foods and wild meat are crucial to protect the environment, safeguard poorer communities and reduce the risk of disease outbreaks and pandemics.

Article originally published by The Conversation.

ALSO READ: Rwandan farmers welcome new potato variety

Tags: dietary shiftsglobal threatslivestockmeat consumptionwild animals
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Food production summit to open in Senegal

by Staff Reporter
18 Jan 2023
0

African heads of state and government together with development partners will gather in Senegal to strategically map plans to unlock...

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Namibia's Popular Democratic Movement party has tabled a motion of insurance for farmers, that will compensate for the loss of livestock due to conflict with wildlife. Photo: Supplied/Food For Mzansi

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