NAIROBI, July 12 (Xinhua) -- The growing demand for animal-based proteins, including beef, pork, mutton, eggs, and milk, is fueling the climate crisis in Africa through methane emissions, campaigners said Wednesday during the second Africa Protein Summit held in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital.
Industrial production of these animal-based proteins to meet the huge demand in Africa's urban centers has also worsened deforestation and biodiversity loss, exposing the continent to climate emergencies, said Tennyson Williams, director for Africa at the World Animal Protection (WAP), an international animal welfare lobby.
Williams stressed that for Africa to cut down on methane emissions, avert climate disasters, and habitat loss linked to mechanized livestock farming, the continent should promote the uptake of plant-based proteins.
Kenya is hosting the summit convened by the WAP from Wednesday to Thursday, whose overall goal is to chart a sustainable future for the continent's food systems in the light of climate change.
Williams said the two-day summit will adopt a communique calling for less carbon-intensive farming and livestock-rearing methods that will be presented at the Africa Climate Week, which will be held in Nairobi on Sept. 4-8.
In addition, Williams said, delegates will agree on a resolution calling for a moratorium on intensive livestock production as a means to lower the emission of heat-trapping gases.
Meat consumption in Africa is expected to rise 30 percent by 2030, necessitating industrial livestock rearing, which is detrimental to ecosystems and human health, said Victor Yamo, the food systems campaign manager at the WAP.
Yamo reckoned that factory farming that aims to satisfy the growing demand for animal-based proteins in a rapidly urbanizing Africa is undermining public health security amid contamination of waterways and the spread of pathogens. He said policymakers, scientists, and consumer lobby groups in the continent should agree on a transition to food systems that are climate resilient and in harmony with nature.
Patrick Muinde, the research manager at the WAP, said incentivizing African smallholders to embark on organic crop and livestock farming is key to taming the climate crisis and boosting human health.
