The Future of Tropical Livestock Systems

Globally, tropical livestock production systems need to adapt to climate change, growing demand for animal source food, and resource scarcity. Transitions to sustainable future systems are guided by a wide variety of drivers and demands, be they economic (such as profitability and farmer livelihoods), socio-political (such as inclusion of smallholders and food safety), or environmental (such as nutrient cycling and avoiding feed-food competition). Understanding these drivers and the nature of system transitions is essential for the design of meaningful interventions. Especially as transitions depend on the values, roles, priorities, and commitments of stakeholders involved.

Course objectives

This course will explore the web of drivers that affect transition of tropical livestock systems towards a state in which they are better able to do what is expected: contribute to healthy diets, offer income and livelihood to farmers, and contribute to efficient use of resources. It will also help you in selecting methodologies for charting out and evaluating pathways to sustainable future tropical livestock systems in ways that match bottom-up and top down planning processes, address multiple demands (political, environmental, social, technological, legal, economic), and are sensitive to the plurality of values encountered. 

Learning goals

Course participants will have increased abilities to

1. To explore the technical and social complexity of defining sustainable transition pathways for tropical livestock systems, incorporating various roles of livestock and choosing appropriate system levels for analysis and planning.
2. To navigate the various people-profit-planet sustainability objectives for livestock systems, such as food production, market participation, climate change, biodiversity, circularity, and feed-food competition.
3. To identify the technical, social and institutional changes required for facilitating system transition, such as technology development and adoption, financing, and policies.

To explore the applicability of a variety of methods for tropical livestock systems, including modelling at various system levels, big data, and artificial intelligence.  

General information

Target Group	PhD students and postdocs
Course level	In-depth, post graduate
Group size	A minimum of 12 and a maximum of 25 participants
Course duration	3 day(s) given once per year
Prior knowledge	Good understanding of tropical livestock production systems, including pastoral, specialized and mixed crop-livestock, aquaculture and coastal fishing systems. Good understanding of food system dynamics around tropical livestock production systems.
Homework/ self- study	Pre-course requirements include reading of key publications provided by course coordinators
Language	English
Credit points	1.2 ECTS (Note: 1 ECTS is equal to 28 hours of study
Name lecturer(s)	Lecturers include staff from APS and other WU departments and selected experts from outside WU.
Teaching method	The course will include interactive lectures based on expert presentations, group work on case studies, and a small modelling assignment on system scenarios
Online/in-person	Wageningen University campus, Wageningen, the Netherlands. Note: Room and building will be communicated to registered and confirmed participants about one week before the start of the course.

 

Programme: 

The three days will be packed with exciting interactive lectures (45 minutes each) and interactive group work. In small groups, you will work on a case study to define sustainable transition pathways and scenarios for one particular system, which includes a small modelling assignment. As group you will present the results and learnings. The tentative themes per day are:

Day 1

Morning        Livestock system typologies (Prof Simon Oosting)

Afternoon     System modelling (Dr Ben van Selm / Dr Ollie van Hal)

Day 2

Morning        Dairy development (Dr Jan van der Lee)

Afternoon      Farm visit 

                     Colonial legacies in livestock development projects (Dr Birgit  Boogaard)

Day 3

Morning        System transitions                        

Afternoon      Presenting group projects

*Fee 

1) Reduced fee: PhD candidates from Wageningen Graduate Schools doing a Training and Supervision Plan (TSP)	€ 350
2) University fee: All other PhD candidates plus postdocs and staff of Wageningen University	€ 700
3) External fee: All other participants	€ 1000

*Fee includes study and training material, coffee/tea and lunches.

Cancellation condition

You may cancel free of charge up to 1 month before the start of the course. After this date you will be charged with the University fee. Unless: 

• You can find someone to replace you in the course and supply the course coordinator with the name and contact information of your replacement. In this case you will be charged a €50,- cancellation fee.
• You are a PhD of Wageningen University with a valid reason to cancel (illness or death in the family 1st or 2nd degree). In this case you will be charged the reduced fee and your supervisor/PI must send a mail indication the reason for cancellation.

Information

For more information please contact:

paddy.haripersaud@wur.nl, tel: +31317486836 or wias@wur.nl