High-yield dairy cattle breeds improve farmer incomes, curtail greenhouse gas emissions and reduce dairy import dependency in Tanzania

Abstract

Tanzania's dairy sector is poorly developed, creating reliance on imports for processed, value-added dairy products and threatening food security, particularly when supply chains are disrupted due to market volatility or armed conflicts. The Tanzanian Dairy Development Roadmap (DDR) is a domestic development initiative that aims to achieve dairy self-sufficiency by 2030. Here, we model different outcomes of the DDR, finding that adoption of high yield cattle breeds is essential for reducing dairy import dependency. Avoided land use change resulting from fewer, higher yielding dairy cattle would lead to lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Dairy producers' average incomes could increase despite capital expenditure and land allocation required for the adoption of high yield breeds. Our findings demonstrate the importance of bottom-up development policies for sustainable food system transformations, which also support food sovereignty, increase incomes for smallholder farmers and contribute towards Tanzania's commitments to reduce GHG emissions.

Feeding cattle under suboptimal conditions in Kenya: From emphasising technical (non-)adoption to stimulating adaptive performance

“…In the dairy sector, climate-smart actions are primarily associated with reducing emissions and intensification strategies based on feed quality and availability, manure management and animal husbandry (Ericksen and Crane, 2018;Khatri-Chhetri et al, 2020;Paul et al, 2020). This outlook reinforces a research focus on assessing barriers and incentives for diffusing designed and optimised intensification practices (Brandt et al, 2020;Bosire et al, 2016;Hawkins et al, 2021Hawkins et al, , 2022. Our concern is what this implies for embedded capacities to adapt to changing conditions in a sector in Kenya that has been an important source of food, income, employment, and provides a safety net for the resource-poor (Herrero et al, 2013).…”

Coupling of crop and livestock production can reduce the agricultural GHG emission from smallholder farms

“…Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a widely adopted approach for quantifying the environmental impacts of all life cycle of a product or activity, starting from the “cradle” (i.e., upstream agricultural production) and ending at the “farm gate” (i.e., the output of the agricultural process, including agricultural products and pollutant emissions). Several studies evaluated the GHG emissions from agricultural food systems, in livestock production 18 , 19 and crop production, 20 , 21 in global 22 , 23 and Chinese 15 , 22 settings. However, the lack of localized model parameters (e.g., environmental impact coefficients) and farmer-scale agricultural survey data (e.g., agricultural input-output data) is a major challenge, because such studies are often limited to a particular area or technology.…”

Accommodating diverse actors and practices in the climate-development nexus : The case of Kenya’s dairy sector

“…In Kenya's dairy sector, climate change interventions aim to refashion livestock systems, focussing on intensification strategies based on feed quality and availability, manure management and animal husbandry (Ericksen & Crane, 2018, Paul et al, 2020. This reinforces focus on assessing barriers and incentives for diffusing designed and optimised intensification practices (Brandt et al, 2020;Hawkins et al, 2021Hawkins et al, , 2022Bosire et al, 2016). In this paper, we utilise evolving, intertwined practices of cow owners navigating complex, changing conditions in drought-prone areas in Kenya to examine mitigation and adaptation in climate change interventions.…”