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Low carbon livestock development in Kyrgyzstan

Quantifying the future impact of the Regional Resilient Pastoral Communities Project on greenhouse gas emissions (Technical note)










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    Policy brief
    Low carbon and resilient livestock development in Kyrgyzstan 2021
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    Livestock are key in combating and adapting to climate change in Kyrgyzstan. Pasture conditions are worse than at the beginning of the century due to unsustainable management practices, exacerbated by climate change. More efforts are needed to strengthen sustainable pasture and herd management. More milk and meat can be produced with fewer emissions and without increasing the number of livestock. Fewer emissions are possible by improving the herd structure, animal health, and feed.
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    Five practical actions towards low-carbon livestock 2019
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    Livestock provide valuable nutritional benefits as well as supporting livelihoods and the resilience of families and communities. Demand for animal products continues to grow in response to rising population and increasing wealth, especially in low- and middle-income countries. In spite of productivity gains, greenhouse gas emissions from livestock are also increasing. Successful action on climate change through practical action in livestock agrifood systems is an urgent priority, but must not come at the expense of other sustainability objectives, particularly those relating hunger and poverty. Hence there is a need to balance the benefits of animal-source foods and livestock keeping for nutrition, health and livelihoods, with the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to tackle the climate crisis, which also threatens food security. The following five practical actions can be widely implemented for measurable and rapid impacts on livestock emissions: 1) boosting efficiency of livestock production and resource use; 2) Intensifying recycling efforts and minimizing losses for a circular bioeconomy; 3) capitalizing on nature-based solutions to ramp up carbon offsets; 4) striving for healthy, sustainable diets and accounting for protein alternatives; and 5) developing policy measures to drive change. This brief describes how these can be implemented in integrative and sustainable ways, taking account the diversity of livestock systems and enhancing synergies and managing tradeoffs with other sustainable development objectives. FAO can help by providing developing tools, methodologies and protocols for measuring emissions, and supporting the development and analysis of technical and policy options towards sustainable, low-carbon livestock.
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    Book (series)
    How do extreme weather events affect livestock herders’ welfare? Evidence from Kyrgyzstan 2018
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    This paper examines the impact of the harsh 2012 winter on livestock herding households in Kyrgyzstan and identifies policy options to increase household resilience to such shocks. While existing studies mostly focus on rainfall shocks in tropical or dry climate areas, this analysis examines the exceptionally harsh winter that hit Kyrgyzstan in 2012, which resulted in the death of 25 000 animals. Using a unique household panel survey, merged with observed temperature data, the analysis finds that, on average, the negative effects of the winter shock on household welfare are significant and persistent over time, leading to a 5 percent and a 8 percent decrease in households’ food consumption expenditure in the short- (2011–2013) and medium-run (2011–2016), respectively. When disaggregating by income quantiles, the evidence shows that negative impact is concentrated in the upper quantiles of the welfare distribution. Several policy options are identified as effective in mitigating the negative welfare impacts of the weather shock. First, supporting households to restock their herds following weather shocks is found to significantly improve medium-term welfare by 10 percent relative to those that did not restock. Restocking efforts can be addressed in a holistic manner that takes into account immediate household needs, while simultaneously building long-term resilience in the livestock sector. This may include mitigating animal losses through the development of local forage markets that increase the availability of winter forage, combined with efforts to improve the genetic pool of livestock species through breeding programmes that select for resiliency traits. Second, results show that households living in regions with higher access to public veterinary services had significantly better welfare outcomes following the winter shock. Improvements of veterinary services and strengthening community-based organizations focusing on livestock and pasture development may help herding households to cope with weather shocks.

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