FAO Livestock Project

Support to the establishment of the Livestock Feed Security Assessment System in Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, and Uganda.

The support to the establishment of the Livestock Feed Security Assessment System in Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, and Uganda project was FAO and IGAD’s program 2020-2022 designed to establish and strengthen the National Animal Feed Security System (NAFSS) in East African countries.  This effort emanated from the East Africa Animal Feed Action Plan, EAAFAP (FAO and IGAD, 2019: http://www.fao.org/3/ca5965en/ca5965en.pdf. Following this recommendation, the project introduced and supported the scale-up of the tools to member states contributing to early warning and action.

NAFSS is a complete array of components, namely tools; procedures, facilities, skills, infrastructure, personnel, organizations, and institutions required to implement them. One of the major inputs for the tools is the feed-related data, and the rest of the components of the NAFSS play important roles in the proper collection, handling, and processing of the data and in the dissemination of the analysed results. An equally vital role of institutions such as the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock and/or Central Statistical Bureau of countries is to integrate the NAFSS into their functions to sustain its operation. The NAFSS is an integral part of the ‘Big Data’ that many countries are aspiring to establish to formulate informed policies and strategic decisions, resulting in livestock production systems that are more efficient, environment-friendly, and resilient to droughts and other emergencies. The major pillars of this System are: a) Feed Inventory and Feed Balance, b) Feed Security Assessment and c) Predictive Livestock Early Warning.

The project is being implemented by a consortium of organizations namely; IGAD/ICPALD, AgriTechTalk Africa (ATTA), and Texas A&M AgriLife Research leading the 3 project pillars namely; Pillar 1:  IGAD/ICPALD, Kenya; Pillar 2: AgriTechTalk Africa, Uganda; and Pillar 3: Texas A&M AgriLife Research, USA respectively within the target countries.