Synthesis: Urban and periurban animal farming Assoc Prof Sofia Boqvist Dept of Biomedical Sciences and Veterinary Public Health

Increased urbanisation

Sofia.Boqvist@slu.se

Urban and peri-urban agriculture • Increasing in both low- and high income countries • It involves approximately 800 million people and

produces 15-20 % of the food in the world • Economically crucial for many poor smallholders

Sofia.Boqvist@slu.se Photo:Sofia Boqvist

Urban animal farming

Opportunitues

• Closeness to the market • Possibility to use urban

wastes and waste water • Women can combine it with

household work • It is an opportunity to provide

food for the family and an extra income

Challenges

• Local markets with living and dead animals

• High density of people and animals

• Supply of feed • Disposal of waste and

manure

Sofia.Boqvist@slu.se

Photo:Sofia Boqvist

Photo:Sofia Boqvist

Photo:Bengt Ekberg

Food security challenges… • Manure management • Enough feed of good quality • Infectious diseases, incl zoonoses

Sofia.Boqvist@slu.se Photo:Sofia Boqvist

Common project: Potential disease transmission at an early level in the food chain

aim: • increase our knowledge of how to use manure as

fertilizer without spreading diseases, • increase access to feed of high quality without

transmitting infections to livestock.

Vermicomposting

• Study occurrence of known and unknown viruses and bacteria in: • earth worms that can be

used for feed • compost materials used

as fertilizer

Photo:Björn Vinnerås

Photo:Cecilia Lalander

Sofia.Boqvist@slu.se

What have we achieved? • How to better utilise available feed resources for

livestock • How to convert manure to feed • Data on risk of zoonotic infections in the food

chain

Sofia.Boqvist@slu.se

Holistic approach needed to solve challenges with urban livestock production with the final aim to increase food security

Sofia.Boqvist@slu.se

Photo:Sofia Boqvist