| Sumario: | Livestock production currently accounts for about 30% of the gross value of agricultural production
in Africa. Seventy per cent of the rural poor in Africa own livestock, including pastoralists living
in arid and semi-arid zones. Of these, over 200 million rely on their livestock for income (sales of
milk, meat and skins) and manure for growing crop. The livestock sector in Africa, characterised
by low productivity, is struggling to keep up with the demand for food from animal sources by
the expanding human population. Conventional methods of livestock improvement and agricultural
research and development have in the past served the purpose of increasing livestock productivity.
However, these options can no longer sustain production hence new intensive techniques including biotechnology are now required to augment productivity.
Modern biotechnology has the potential to provide new opportunities for achieving enhanced
livestock productivity in a way that alleviates poverty, improves food security and nutrition and
promotes sustainable use of natural resources. While modern biotechnology is and will not be a
panacea for solving all the problems of food insecurity and poverty, it could provide a critical
component to the solution if it is guided by appropriate policies. This proposition forms the basis
of this paper.
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