| Excutive
summary: |
Livestock products comprise an important component
of agricultural production, but have largely been ignored
in water management for food security. Some knowledge of drinking
requirements and physiology of water in domestic animals exists.
However, the water required for production of animal feed
far exceeds what animals drink, varies greatly across agricultural
production systems, and has not been reliably determined.
Knowledge of the impact of livestock keeping on water resources
has not been adequately synthesized and applied to integrated
river basin management, but degradation of water by livestock
may exceed the total amount used.
There is great need to understand livestock-water
interactions for improving livestock-water productivity. Water
used to increase production of animal-based food products
for people must be balanced with water demand for crop and
fish production, ecosystem services and other human needs.
Area-wide integration of livestock keeping practices in the
context of integrated river basin management is required to
encourage a shift in animal production away from areas of
conflict for water use. The general hypothesis is that better
management of livestock-water interactions will contribute
to increased water-use efficiency for food production in river
basins.
This research sets out to improve food security,
reduce poverty and enhance agroecosystem health by managing
livestock for more effective overall use of water resources
in the Nile basin. It addresses livestock-water interactions
in rainfed pastoral, rainfed mixed crop-livestock, peri-urban
and large scale irrigation systems all of which are important
priorities in the basin. It addresses two interlinked research
and development (R&D) pathways to enhance long-term understanding
of livestock-water interactions and to achieve short-term
impact. First, basin-wide mapping, spatial modelling and description
of livestock-water hotspots will provide an improved knowledge
base for immediate basin and national policy development.
In the longer term, this policy will help target investment
in community-based management of livestock, water and land
resources. Second, immediate improvements in community-based
livestock and water management to benefit women and men with
minimal investment and available technology will be made.
In the longer term, aggregation of local experiences and perspectives
of key livestock-water interactions from diverse communities
and consideration of their importance to food security and
poverty reduction will enhance effectiveness of future policy
for integrated river basin management.
Project outputs will include training of graduate
students, a toolbox of proven tools and methods for water
and livestock management, extension materials, policy, awareness
workshops, and publications. These will have direct impact
on community-based livestock and water management and provide
decision-support for identifying priority areas or "hot
spots" in the Nile basin requiring more detailed R&D.
A novel R&D partnership, including communities,
NGOs, NARES, FAO, and the CGIAR, will combine diverse socio-economic,
NRM, and community development skills to enhance their collective
capacity to undertake integrated livestock and water management
and to access requisite technologies and information. The
project anticipates that increased know-how will be out-scaled
in subsequent research and in CP synthesis activities to other
basins where livestock are important.
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