Tropentag, September 18 - 20, 2019 in Kassel "Filling gaps and removing traps for sustainable resources development"

LivestockPlus: Supporting Low Emissions Development in the Latin American Cattle Sector

¹International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Colombia
²World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), Kenya
³National University of Colombia, Dept. of Animal Production, Colombia
⁴Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE), Costa Rica
⁵Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, Costa Rica
⁶University of Cauca, Colombia

Abstract

The LivestockPlus project was created in 2015 with the aim to provide technical assistance and raise up baseline information for the development and implementation of the Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) for the livestock sector in Latin-American countries. The first pilot regions were Colombia and Costa Rica, where the process of developing sectorial NAMAs was in early to intermediate stage.
This concept demonstrates how improved forages, when properly managed, can lead to the sustainable intensification of mixed crop-forage-livestock systems in the tropics, while recognising the multiple social, economic and environmental objectives. Minimizing trade-offs, LivestockPlus emphasises the synergy between soils, plants, animals, people and the environment.
This initiative helped to determine technical options for low emissions pasture development in Latin America through intensification at the three levels: (i) genetic, to provide a wide range of forage/feed options; (iii) ecological, to generate multi-dimensional benefits and minimise trade-offs; and (iii) socio-economic, to promote wide-spread use of improved forages.
As a result, Costa Rica and Colombia have made significant progress in the development and early implementation of their respective NAMAs for the cattle sector, and their experience have played an important role for the scaling up of these initiatives to other regions through the NAMAs and other policies. The project facilitated synergies that enabled overcoming barriers to the adoption of improved management practices and, consequently, the achievement of low emission development by: (i) fostering partnerships among relevant stakeholders; (ii) identifying and evaluating best-fit mitigation options; and (iii) evaluating measurement reporting and verification (MRV) systems for the cattle sector in the target countries.

Keywords: Colombia, Costa Rica, climate change mitigation, Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions, nationally determined contributions

Contact Address: Jacobo Arango, International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), A A 6713, Cali, Colombia, e-mail: j.arangocgiar.org