Livestock farming threatened in Africa as food insecurity worsens: experts

Livestock keeping is reducing in Africa due to lack of grazing land as a result of global warming that affects organic matter in the soil, a leading agro ecologist said this week.Dr. Roland Bunch told a food security conference in Nairobi on food security that the once vibrant livestock keeping in most countries in Africa is fast dying.“150 million peasant livestock farmers in lowland Africa are frequently affected by the increasing population and the decrease in supply of manure in the land,” he added.Bunch blamed loss in farming to abandonment of farrowing that enables 30 – 80 percent of manure to sink in the soil, rise of fertilizer prices and global warming as reasons for food insecurity in most African countries.He said that as a result over 50 million people are moving to the slums in urban centers in search of alternative means of living.He discouraged giving food aid to the people adding that despite giving food aid to the people in Niger for the last 15 years, the situation has not improved but instead become worse.“Food aid is not long term solution but instead encourages farmers not to work on their farms and must be stopped,” he added.Bunch called on agriculture experts to collaborate with farmers in developing farmer innovations whereby they mix seeds with livestock manure to help improve soil fertility.Kenya’s agriculture secretary Dr. Wilson Songa said that the increasing population and demand for industrial development has put pressure on land and natural forests leading to a decline in tree cover.

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Livestock farming threatened in Africa as food insecurity worsens: experts