Demand for animal foods may lead to unmanageable spread of disease
And unchecked livestock growth threatens to worsen climate change, which is expected to cut harvests in developing countries in the long term
Rome — Africa is set to experience an unprecedented boom in demand for animal foods over the coming decades that if not properly managed, could lead to the spread of new diseases, damage the environment and affect people’s livelihoods, experts say. The UN forecasts that demand for meat, milk and eggs in Africa will almost quadruple by 2050, fuelled by a ballooning population — expected to double to 2.4-billion — and a growing appetite for high-protein foods driven by rising living standards. This is despite the fact that more than 20-million people are currently struggling to feed themselves because of hunger crises spurred by drought and conflict in the Horn of Africa and the Lake Chad region. "The entire continent is going to change in the next couple of decades," said Ugo Pica Ciamarra, a livestock economist at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). As meat products and livestock are perishable and difficult to export, demand is to be met mostly by local producers who wi...
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