Climate change poses significant challenges to livestock systems worldwide, requiring urgent and innovative responses to ensure the resilience of these systems and the livelihoods that depend on them. This report presents the water, fodder, bush-fire and transhumance corridor monitoring system as well as the livestock climate information information dissemination in the pastoral zones of Senegal.

On September 18, 2023, the One CGIAR initiative on Livestock and Climate, in collaboration with the Direction General des Forets (DGF) and the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), hosted a webinar addressing the challenges and opportunities in leveraging native species for the restoration of degraded silvopastoral systems in Tunisia. The webinar convened 34 participants from diverse national research and development institutions, fostering a rich exchange of perspectives.

Participatory Integrated Climate Services for Agriculture (PICSA) is an agricultural extension and climate services approach that supports farmers in making plans and decisions tailored to each farmer’s own ‘context’ in their production systems. It is implemented by facilitators (e.g., extension officers, non-governmental organisation field staff, community volunteers and researchers) through a series of meetings with groups of farmers.

Climate change is severely impacting our food systems, making it increasingly challenging to provide food security and healthy diets for all people. At the same time, food systems contribute 25–30% of all greenhouse gas emissions. The livestock sector alone contributes about half of these GHGs, and has a large land and water footprint.

The frequency of El Niño occurrences in southern Africa surpasses the norm, resulting in erratic weather patterns that significantly impact food security, particularly in Zimbabwe. The effects of these weather patterns posit that El Niño occurrences have contributed to the diminished maize yields. The objective is to give guidelines to policymakers, researchers, and agricultural stakeholders for taking proactive actions to address the immediate and lasting impacts of El Niño and enhance the resilience of the agricultural industry.

In Ethiopia, the production of livestock has been mainly constrained by low quality feed supply and seasonal fluctuations. The usage of good quality and drought-tolerant forage legumes like white lupin and tree lucerne are recommended to overcome feed constraints. Those legumes fix atmospheric nitrogen when being in symbiosis with rhizobia and thereby reduce the need for synthetic fertilizers. However, they show variations in terms of N2-fixation, calling for screening the best native symbionts.

Son La province has recently put in place policies and programs to support expansion of livestock production, however the province still faces low livestock productivity due to low quality and availability of forages and feedstuff. One of the provincial government’s priorities is to increase productivity of cattle and pigs through improved animal nutrition practices such as increased cultivation of improved forages and better feed management and utilization.

The training targeted youth and women sheep fattening groups, aiming to enhance their knowledge and skills in optimizing feed management practices. ICARDA partnered with the National Agricultural Research Centers of Areka, Bonga, and Debre Berhan to deliver the training sessions. The objective of the trainings was to equip participants with the necessary expertise to formulate balanced sheep diets and efficiently process feed, thereby improving sheep productivity and promoting sustainable livestock feeding practices.