This is the 05th post in a blog series to be published in 2022 by the Secretariat on behalf of the AU High-Level Panel on Emerging Technologies (APET) and the Calestous Juma Executive Dialogues (CJED)

Cattle farming and meat production have always been an important socio-economic aspect and cultural activity for many Africans. This is because cattle production contributes significantly to food security and ensuring food nutrition for most African societies. In addition, cattle dung can provide cost-effective manure and fertiliser for African farmers. Culturally, cattle are symbolic for African families paying dowry during traditional weddings.

Reports have estimated that approximately 70% of Africans, totalling about 150 million rural Africans, are significantly dependent on livestock such as cattle to sustain their socio-economic livelihoods.[1] This clearly demonstrates the potential economic benefits of leveraging cattle farming in the African continent. Effectively harnessing cattle and livestock production can potentially increase job creation and entrepreneurship for African farmers.

There has been an incremental global demand for protein meat products.[2] However, the production of beef and beef products across the African continent remains limited.[3] Currently, African livestock production can barely meet the local demand for meat supply. Consequently, about one-third of African countries are importing approximately 20% of their meat supply.

Since the African population is growing and expected to reach approximately 2.5 billion by 2050, economic growth demands are also expected to increase to support consumer purchasing power.[4] African countries should therefore ensure adequate supply of food, more especially nutritious food. The United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimated that beef consumption in Africa will increase by approximately 200% between 2015 and 2050.[5] This presents an opportunity for cattle producers to increase their food-producing capacity. Africa's cattle farming should be strengthened to meet the growing meat demands, and the necessary interventions to enhance meat production should be actively pursued and implemented across the continent.

Various factors in the cattle production industry have caused African countries to observe limited yields of cattle breeds. This includes infections from diseases such as foot-and-mouth and constrained feeding management systems. Furthermore, because of urbanisation, there have been reduced feeding land suitable for cattle production. The feeding land has also been decreasing because of the incremental drought frequencies caused by climate change and weather variability, thereby declining arable grazing land.[6] This has led to overstocking cattle in some instances, with the hope to increase production on an already delicate and over-stretched feeding land.

The African Union High Level Panel on Emerging Technologies (APET) encourages African countries to support cattle farming by enhancing their production capacity through innovation and emerging technologies. Enhanced livestock production can be accomplished by adopting smart technologies towards cattle feeding management mechanisms and methodologies.

Within the cattle production value chain, the cattle feeding component accounts for approximately 75% of the total variable costs of production in beef production. Therefore, APET recommends the adoption of smart technologies to improve precision livestock feeding through improved feeding protocols and management systems.

Historically, to supplement grazing land and meet the nutrient demand for livestock, farmers have utilised silage to feed their cattle.[7] The silage is forage that is manufactured by fermenting chopped fresh green material such as maise, corn, wheat, grass, among others. This fermentation is undertaken in the absence of oxygen that is referred to as anaerobic conditions. The silage is relatively a palatable forage containing high quality nutritional and energy contents. A challenge to the availability and supply of silage is climate change and the resultant droughts. Temperature increases, changes in precipitation patterns, and extreme weather events can cause lower yields of the materials required to produce the silages.

Most African farmers are aware of the negative climate change impacts and incremental drought. Yet, numerous African farmers are neglecting to build the necessary fodder bank for challenging times. African farmers can utilise modern irrigation systems to curb the crop damages and losses caused by harsh climate conditions.[8] Through these interventions, they can enhance and prioritise soil water retention and invest in making their own silage.[9]

Meat contamination has also been of concern for cattle farmers. In some instances, meat cannot be exported because of contamination of microbial-induced chemicals such as aflatoxins, a family of toxins generated by fungi (Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus). These aflatoxins are found on crops such as maise, corn, peanuts, cottonseed, and tree nuts. The aflatoxin-producing fungi can pollute crops in the field, harvest, and/or storage, and cattle can be exposed to aflatoxins when consuming the contaminated crops. Consuming aflatoxin-contaminated meat and dairy products poses a significant public health threat to consumers and can reportedly lead to various diseases such as cancer and tuberculosis.[10] Therefore, better and more efficient testing mechanisms for aflatoxins should be implemented in meat production.

Farmers can curb aflatoxins' spread through artificial intelligence-enabled precision agriculture monitoring systems for feed. For example, cattle farmers from Uganda invest in testing systems to detect aflatoxins in animal feeds. This is aimed at improving the quality of and eliminating the aflatoxin contamination of meat being produced.[11] The farmers are utilising lateral flow test strips to measure aflatoxins. As these tests do not require laboratory overheads and can produce accurate and reliable results, they are useful to cattle production.[12] Results can then be interpreted by scanning them using smart mobile phones. Early detection of aflatoxins aids African farmers to make informed decisions on contaminant-free feeds needed by their livestock.

To further strengthen precision livestock management systems of cattle, APET suggests that African cattle producers utilise sensors to track all activities of their herds.[13] Digitally monitoring the individual animal health and comfort can reduce operational costs because of the timely upkeep of cattle's welfare. Furthermore, beef producers can utilise wearable sensors to monitor general animal health such as rumination, illness, and lameness effectively and accurately. Sensors can also be utilised to build virtual fencing for livestock, improving their safety protocols and management systems.

Still on the use of smart technologies for livestock farming, cattle producers can also utilise drone technology to manage their feedlots and ranches easily. Drones can monitor fence lines, water troughs, and gates[14] , and farmers can manage pasture more efficiently through aerial images and videos. Another tool is the use of robots for beef processing operations. Robots can execute small and common tasks such as daily feeding[15] , and self-automated robots can mix animal feed and deliver it to the barn for consumption. The robots can also keep the feed bins full and feed the animals multiple times daily to enhance the efficiency of production growth rates.

African farmers can also consider the 3-D printing technology to hasten their food processing capacities. Meat food producers can utilise 3-D printing to produce new types of food by utilising low-value meat cuts.[16] Consequently, this can create new opportunities to boost the carcass value and increase profitability. In addition, 3-D printing can support the efficient replacement of machine parts and enhance veterinary applications.[17]

APET further believes that African farmers can exploit blockchain technologies for their farming management systems. Blockchain technology can improve the transparency between consumers and farmers when purchasing meat products.[18] This can improve the knowledge of the origin and concerns over foodborne diseases. The lack of traceability of foodborne diseases makes some consumers sceptical of food labels. Therefore, the blockchain-enabled technologies can reinstate confidence in food products by enabling traceability of products along the entire supply chain, i.e., from producer to retailer.

African meat producers can also incorporate artificial intelligence in growing animals to sustain the market and consumer specifications and timelines. Fundamentally, farmers can utilise artificial intelligence such as machine vision to digitally capture and analyse camera images of animals' depth, size, and fat content. This can help African farmers accurately predict the animal's market potential and value.[19] Furthermore, 3-D images analysed through artificial intelligence algorithms can enable accurate body condition scores for each animal. The different measurements, such as muscling, can utilise mathematical description and assign a value to estimate a cow's condition based on the 3-D shape that the machine can derive.

Further to this, African farmers can utilise augmented reality that combines real-world observations with virtual-world information. This is accomplished by using only a pair of glasses or smartphones to enhance vision and make better management decisions.[20] For example, 3-D objects from architectural feedlot drawings can be projected to allow feedlot producers predict the accurate allocation of operational space. In addition, farmers can also inspect through the barn or feedlot and immediately observe their cows' health statistical status through augmented reality goggles.

Virtual reality can further advance augmented reality by generating 3-D imagery through computer simulations in virtual reality. Interestingly, virtual reality technology can demonstrate farm life to the public and enhance consumer and investor awareness and engagements without endangering animals or consumers. A similar concept can also be utilised for pre-sale auctions to enable farmers to view and purchase livestock through a 360-degree pre-sale auction inspection video experience.[21] The potential purchasers can navigate the auction forum from their computers and smartphones within a headset.

APET also suggests that African farmers should utilise the nutrigenomics piece to create an opportunity for precision nutrition. Nutrigenomics determines how nutrition can impact gene expression, subsequently affecting the cow's health, immunity, and growth rate.[22] This new technology allows the cattle to be supplemented with specific levels of nutrients at specific times. This encourages the body to assimilate and utilise those specific nutrients more efficiently and subsequently enhance productivity and, ultimately, profit. This digital technology can be interconnected via the internet-of-things (IoT) devices to improve precision cattle management practices, productivity, and timely responses to future threats.

In conclusion, APET is encouraging Africa's livestock producers to pursue high-quality and accurate feeding technologies that could lead to high-quality meat productions. This will enable African countries to accomplish the aspirations of the African Union's Agenda 2063 and the African Union Summit's decision on Accelerated Agricultural Growth and Transformation to ensure food security in Africa. African countries are encouraged to formulate the necessary policy and regulatory frameworks to enable African farmers to harness sustainable technological innovations designed to bolster animal production. Therefore, scaling up these smart technologies in livestock production can help Africa unlock new opportunities and ensure high-quality livestock agriculture to meet the rising demands of the growing African population.

 

Featured Bloggers – APET Secretariat

Justina Dugbazah

Barbara Glover

Bhekani Mbuli

Chifundo Kungade

 

[1] https://www.fao.org/3/bp306e/bp306e.pdf.

[2] https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/765551468209989452/pdf/860930WP0P147900Box382165B00PUBLIC0.pdf.

[3] https://www.feednavigator.com/Article/2018/10/15/Will-Africa-produce-the-food-or-will-feeding-Africa-become-a-global-challenge.

[4]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7543768/ .

[5] https://african.business/2019/03/economy/raising-the-steaks-africas-booming-meat-industry/.

[6] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211912420300250.

[7] R. D. Sheldrick. (1975) Optimum Cutting Period for Silage Maize in Western Kenya. East African Agricultural and Forestry Journal 40:4, pages 394-399.

[8] https://www.agriorbit.com/silage-production-can-be-a-lifeline-during-a-drought/.

[9] https://www.grainsa.co.za/what-makes-silage-special#:~:text=Silage%20has%20several%20advantages%20over,lie%20in%20the%20field%20drying.

[10] https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/substances/aflatoxins.

[11] https://theconversation.com/how-smart-investments-in-technology-can-beef-up-africas-economy-142503.

[12] file:///C:/Users/chifundok/Downloads/Innovations-in-Food-Trade-Rethinking-Aflatoxin-Management-in-East-Africa%20(1).pdf.

[13] Derek W. Bailey, Mark G. Trotter, Colin Tobin, and Milt G. Thomas, (2021) Opportunities to Apply Precision Livestock Management on Rangelands. Front. Sustain. Food Syst. 5:611915. doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2021.611915.

[14] The drones watching over cattle where cowboys cannot reach: https://www.bbc.com/future/bespoke/follow-the-food/drones-finding-cattle-where-cowboys-cannot-reach.html.

[15] McKinsey Quarterly: Where machines could replace humans—and where they can’t (yet). https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/where-machines-could-replace-humans-and-where-they-cant-yet.

[16] Ramachandraiah, K. Potential Development of Sustainable 3D-Printed Meat Analogues: A Review. Sustainability 2021, 13, 938. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13020938

[17] Hespel, Adrien-Maxence & Wilhite, Ray & Hudson, Judith. (2014). Invited review–Applications for 3D printers in veterinary medicine. Veterinary Radiology & Ultrasound. 55. 10.1111/vru.12176.

[18] Sander, Fabian & Semeijn, Janjaap & Mahr, Dominik. (2018). The acceptance of blockchain technology in meat traceability and transparency. British Food Journal. 120. 10.1108/BFJ-07-2017-0365.

[19] Suresh Neethirajan, The role of sensors, big data and machine learning in modern animal farming, Sensing and Bio-Sensing Research, 29, 2020, 100367, ISSN 2214-1804. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbsr.2020.100367.

[20] What Is Augmented Reality (AR)? A Practical Overview. https://www.threekit.com/blog/what-is-augmented-reality.

[21] 8 digital technologies for a new era of beef production, 07 February 2022. https://www.agricultureportal.co.za/index.php/agri-index/69-animals/7473-8-digital-technologies-for-a-new-era-of-beef-production.

[22] German JB, Zivkovic AM, Dallas DC, Smilowitz JT. Nutrigenomics and personalized diets: What will they mean for food?. Annu Rev Food Sci Technol. 2011;2:97-123. doi:10.1146/annurev.food.102308.124147.