No Stopping the Livestock Revolution, Says IFPRI

July 26,1999

There's no stopping the worldwide demand for products from food-producing animals, but policy makers will have to focus on four issues to benefit the poor, says a new study from the International Food Policy Research Institute.

"The ongoing nutritional transformation in developing countries driven by income, population and urban growth leaves little room for policy to alter the widespread increase in demand for animal food products," the study says. "Policy can, however, help make the form of the revolution as beneficial as possible to the overall well-being of the poor."

To do that, small-scale producers must be linked vertically with processors and marketers of perishable products. "The poor find it difficult to gain access to productive assets such as credit and refrigeration facilities and to information such as knowledge about microbial infection prevention," the study says.

Another issue is to remedy distortions that promote artificial economies of scale, such as subsidies to large-scale credit and grazing. Political commitment will be needed and public and private partnerships to develop the technologies and practices necessary to minimize risks from animal disease that are inevitable when animals from large numbers of small-scale producers are mixed in a single finishing or processing facility, the report notes.

Regulatory mechanisms to deal with health and environmental problems from livestock production must be developed. "Technologies that address environmental and public health dangers will not work unless regulatory enforcement backs them up," says the study. That will occur when the political demands for better regulation "become strong."

Also, small-scale producers must be included in the "response to this dynamic opportunity." A lack of policy action will not stop the livestock revolution, "but it will ensure that the form it takes is less favorable for growth, poverty alleviation and sustainability in developing countries."