Fraval et al.Food Access Deficiencies in Sub-saharan Africa nutrition-sensitive and nutrition-specific interventions. Interventions need to be tailored to agro-ecological zone, household composition, scale of operation and production mix. Increasing income will not necessarily result in improved diet diversity or healthy dietary choices. Interventions focused on income generation should monitor and promote crop and livestock production diversity and provide nutrition education.

A B S T R A C TGlobal consumption of livestock products is increasing steadily due to human population growth, poverty reduction and dietary changes raising the demand for already scarce freshwater and land resources. Here, we analyze the changes associated with direct and indirect use of freshwater and land for meat and milk production in three production systems in Kenya between the 1980s and 2000s. We use two resource use indicators, the water footprint (m 3 /year) and land footprint (ha), to assess changes in freshwater and land use for cattle, goats, sheep and camels in arid, semi-arid and humid production systems. We estimate actual water and land use using Kenya-wide data for yields, feed composition and feed conversion efficiencies. Our results show that the amounts of freshwater and land resources used for production are determined mainly by production volumes and feed conversion efficiencies. Total water and land footprints of milk production increased for goats, sheep and camels but decreased by half for cattle in arid and semi-arid production systems, in correspondence with similar changes in the total numbers of each livestock species. Green water and grazing land footprints dominated in all production systems due to the predominance of indirect use of water to support forage production. The per unit meat footprint for cattle increased significantly between the 1980s and 2000s in all production systems, due to adverse trends in feed conversion efficiency, while changes in the water and land footprints of other animal products were small, due to modest changes in all influencing factors. In contrast, national average footprints per unit of beef and milk show a modest decrease due to a relative shift of production to the more resource-efficient humid production system. Given the potential increase in demand for livestock products and limited freshwater and land availability, feed conversion efficiencies should be improved by rehabilitating degraded rangelands, adopting improved breeds and using appropriate feed composition.

Increasing demands for meat and milk in developing countries and the associated production growth are driving the expansion of agriculture at the expense of environmental conservation and other land uses. While considerable attention has been directed at improving crop yields to alleviate the pressure on land, there has been far less attention on the implications of the expected intensification of livestock production. Here, we present and analyse the land availability and land footprints of livestock intensification for five scenarios representing various degrees of intensification of meat and milk production by cattle, sheep, goats and camels in arid, semi-arid and humid production systems in Kenya. The first three scenarios are defined by increasing levels of input and management, ranging from low (scenario S1), intermediate (S2) to high (S3) input feed crop cultivation and livestock production. Reference scenario S1 has production practices and output of meat and milk similar to current production practices. In scenarios S2 and S3, the total land used for livestock production remains the same as in S1. Two additional scenarios, S4 and S5, explore opportunities for lessening environmental pressure through reduction of the land footprint of meat and milk production. For each scenario, we quantify the potential availability of grassland and cropland for meat and milk production by cattle, sheep, goats and camel in the arid, semi-arid and humid production systems. A resource use indicator, land footprint (ha), is used to assess changes in land use associated with livestock production. We estimate that the potential increase in production due to intensification from scenario S1 to S2 is 51% for milk and 71% for meat. The potential increase due to improving production from scenario S1 to S3 is 80% for milk and 113% for meat. The area of grazing land, as a percentage of the total potentially available grazing land, decreases from 10% to 6% as productivity increases from scenario S1 to S5. Cropland usage increases from 4% in scenario S1 to 11% in scenario S5. Reduced land demand in scenarios S4 and S5 indicates the possibility that intensification may help reduce the pressure on land and hence promote environmental conservation. Overall, the results suggest that it is possible to increase production to meet increasing demands for meat and milk while also gaining land for environmental conservation through intensification. Realizing the potential presented by the intensification scenarios will be contingent upon successfully establishing and operationalizing enabling policies, institutional arrangements and markets and ensuring that relevant information, services, inputs, and other essential requirements are available, accessible and affordable to herders and farmers.