NAIROBI, Kenya, Sep 3-African countries are stepping up efforts to transform livestock production and reduce the continent’s heavy dependence on food imports, with ministers warning that unlocking the sector’s potential will require coordinated investment, trade and animal-health systems across borders.

📻 Breaking It Down

Ministers and representatives from eight African countries committed to scaling proven livestock innovations, strengthening value chains and expanding regional markets during a high-level roundtable at the Africa Food Systems Forum in Kigali, Rwanda, on Thursday.

The push comes against a stark productivity gap: Africa spends an estimated $70 billion to $100 billion annually on food imports, despite holding about a fifth of the world’s cattle.

The continent produces only about five per cent of global milk, while demand for animal-source foods is projected to rise sharply by 2050.

📌 What You Need to Know

Appolinaire Djikeng, Director General of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), said Africa already had many of the technologies and knowledge required to transform livestock production, but lacked the scale needed to close the gap between domestic production and imports.

“Clearly Africa doesn’t lack solutions for its livestock sector. What it lacks is scale and productivity,” Djikeng said.

He said closing the production-import gap would be critical to unlocking Africa’s broader agribusiness potential, estimated at $1 trillion annually.

“Closing this gap between what Africa produces and what it imports is the key to delivering on the promise of the continent’s $1trillion annual agribusiness potential,” he said.

The roundtable brought together ministers and representatives from Nigeria, Uganda, Niger, Mali, Malawi, Rwanda and Ethiopia, alongside former Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi.

The meeting was convened by ILRI and the African Union Inter-African Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR) and hosted by AGRA.

📰 Source: Capital FM Kenya