The Technical Advisory Group (TAG) for Water Use Assessment, composed by 30 international experts, has developed guidelines on water footprinting for livestock supply chains. The mandate of the Water TAG was to provide recommendations to monitor the environmental performance of feed and livestock supply chains over time so that progress towards improvement targets can be measured; apply the guidelines for feed and water demand of small ruminants, poultry, large ruminants and pig supply chains; build on and go beyond the existing FAO LEAP guidelines; and pursue alignment with relevant International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards, specifically ISO 14040, ISO 14044 (ISO, 2006b and 2006a) and ISO 14046 (ISO, 2014). The guidelines on water use assessment include the impact assessment: the assessment of the environmental performance related to water use of a livestock-related system by assessing potential environmental impacts of blue water consumption following the water scarcity footprint according to the framework provided by ISO 14046 (ISO, 2014); and the assessment of the system’s productivity of green and blue water. The guidelines are thus intended to support the optimization of use of water resources and the identification of opportunities to decrease the potential impacts of water use in livestock production. The Water TAG guidance is relevant for livestock production systems, including feed production from croplands and grasslands, and production and processing of livestock products (cradle-to-gate). It addresses all livestock production systems and livestock species considered in existing LEAP animal guidelines: poultry, pig, small ruminant and large ruminant supply chains.

The evaluation of the project “Livestock Environmental Assessment and Performance (LEAP) Partnership” covered the three phases of the LEAP Partnership (2012–2021). The evaluation found that the project responded to an existing demand to advance towards a science-based benchmarking of the environmental performance of the livestock sector. The LEAP partnership was a cost-effective approach that contributed to consensus building and greater understanding of the factors influencing environmental performance by providing a neutral forum for discussion and negotiation. The evaluation provides six recommendations: i) strengthen the project’s theory of change to reflect the complexity of learning and innovation, including gender perspective; ii) strengthen the multi-stakeholder partnership governance, management and procedures; iii) strengthen collaboration with other initiatives such as the Global Agenda for Sustainable Livestock (GASL) and the Global Livestock Environmental Assessment Model (GLEAM); iv) reduce the budget uncertainty through improved long-term planning and a strengthened resource mobilization strategy; v) update and improve the dissemination strategy; and vi) develop an outreach strategy with clear goals.

The Technical Advisory Group (TAG) on biodiversity, hereafter called Biodiversity TAG, is composed of 25 international experts in ecology, biodiversity indicators, agronomy, life cycle assessment, livestock production systems, and environmental science. Their backgrounds, complementary between systems and regions, allowed them to understand and address different perspectives. The aim of the methodology developed in these guidelines is to introduce a harmonized international approach for assessing the impacts of livestock on biodiversity. The livestock sector is a major user of natural resources (land in particular) and an important contributor to pollution (e.g. causing nutrient losses, increasing greenhouse gas emissions), which makes it one of the sectors with the highest impact on biodiversity. At the same time, livestock production is one of the few sectors with not only negative but also positive impacts on biodiversity; therefore, the sector can pull two levers to improve its biodiversity performance – mitigate harm and maximize benefits. Many environmental assessments of the livestock sector have not addressed biodiversity because of its intrinsic complexity. These guidelines strive to include biodiversity in environmental assessments, in order to increase the understanding of the impacts of livestock on biodiversity and to reveal possible synergies or trade-offs with other environmental criteria or Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Several indicators in these guidelines are also of relevance for the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.

The assessment of water productivity in livestock supply chains has a critical role to play in developing productive and sustainable food production systems worldwide. In particular, the evaluation of water productivity improvement options is key to addressing growing food demand and the projected impacts of climate change under conditions where the availability of land and water resources is increasingly limited. In this report, we review current applications of water productivity analysis in livestock supply chains. To do so, we analysed 50 livestock water productivity studies carried out in various regions of the world from 1993 to the present time. We reviewed the assessment goals, system boundaries, methodological approaches, water flows, modelling tools, databases, livestock species and the main findings in each of the studies. We found that there was no consistency in the methods and approaches used to assess water productivity in livestock production chains. The studies varied widely in terms of their assessment goals, methodology, and the sources of water used for the analysis. The main methodological differences were the inclusion or exclusion of background processes, such as water input and the treatment of precipitation in accounting for water use in livestock production processes. Another key issue was the missing uncertainty assessment, which can be classified as input data uncertainty or model uncertainty, as well as choice uncertainties. The review recommends the further development of guidelines that ensure a consistent and coordinated application of water productivity analysis of livestock production systems world-wide.

Greenhouse gas emissions by the livestock sector could be cut by as much as 30 percent through the wider use of existing best practices and technologies. FAO conducted a detailed analysis of GHG emissions at multiple stages of various livestock supply chains, including the production and transport of animal feed, on-farm energy use, emissions from animal digestion and manure decay, as well as the post-slaughter transport, refrigeration and packaging of animal products. This report represents the most comprehensive estimate made to-date of livestocks contribution to global warming as well as the sectors potential to help tackle the problem. This publication is aimed at professionals in food and agriculture as well as policy makers.

Managing Healthy Livestock Production and Consumption is a highly interdisciplinary resource based on scientific and empirical evidence. It is illustrated with best practices of low-input livestock systems from different continents and offers predictive modelling alternatives for a more resilient future. By addressing gaps of knowledge and presenting scientific perspective studies of livestock's impact on the environment and the global food supply up to 2050, this book is useful for those advocating for sustainable food systems. Existing evidence of the effects of livestock production on food quality and nutrition is reviewed. Livestock production and consumption is a highly diverse topic where current publications only include/focus a single aspect of the issues, for example, greenhouse gas emissions or health impacts, leading to unilateral decisions such as refraining from meat consumption. However, animals are necessary to soil fertility and ecosystems balance and a more realistic resource is necessary for researchers, scientists, and policy makers. This book clarifies perceptions by presenting sound scientific evidence across livestock landscapes for the scientific community to better appreciate the ecological web of life and the social web of community related to livestock production. An edited work written by globally diverse scientists and practitioners, including field workers, technicians, and policy makers, this is a valuable resource for researchers, teachers, and development agents working in the area of sustainable livestock production and consumption of animal source foods. National, international organizations, policy makers, and donors interested in sustainable development of the livestock sector will also find the information here practical and applicable. - Describes the public-health impacts of sustainable diets and livestock products - Presents the impacts of livestock production on the environment and food supply - Explores future scenarios (up to 2050) of low input livestock systems - Includes current case studies of low input livestock systems that offer potential for scaling-up and replication for sustainable livestock futures

Climate change is one of the most critical social and environmental concerns and the biggest threat to economic stability in human history. Türkiye, Azerbaijan, and Central Asia countries, namely Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, are vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change. Although average forest cover is only 10.2 percent of these countries (FAO-SEC countries), they play an essential role in climate change mitigation and adaptation, including human well-being and biodiversity co-benefits. The NbS concept has gained attention since the late 2000s. Its practical contribution to global climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts has found significant implementation opportunities in forestry to support the protection and conservation, restoration and expansion, and sustainable management of forests under the impact of climate change.Globally, implementing NbSs to combat the negative impact of climate change on forestry is promoted by the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF), United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Paris Agreement, United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.Regionally, implementing NbSs to combat the negative impacts of climate change on forestry has been included in the forest policy initiatives of the countries in the sub-region recently. As a result, governments have implemented NbSs through national strategies and programs to address societal challenges by enhancing ecosystem services and promoting human well-being and biodiversity co-benefits. For example, Azerbaijan has implemented afforestation, reforestation, rehabilitation, and restoration activities in forest fund lands on an average of 9 727 hectares (ha) annually since 2000. Kazakhstan aims to save the Aral Sea basin from salinity and improve soil fertility through afforestation activities of saxaul species on 0.25 million ha, and the afforestation area in the Aral Sea will be extended by 1 million ha till 2025. Kyrgyzstan has planned a 1,000-ha annual plantation program to expand protected natural areas to 10 percent. Tajikistan implements 2,000 ha of annual plantation activities to increase the greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation potential through participatory forestry sector development. Türkiye implemented afforestation, soil conservation, forest rehabilitation, pasture rehabilitation, private afforestation, artificial regeneration, and establishment of energy forests activities on 9.62 million ha from 1946 to 2022. Turkmenistan conducts afforestation activities with drought-resistant plant species and established the "Golden Century Lake" in the Karakum Desert to improve the climate conditions and conserve biodiversity. Uzbekistan declared the Aral Sea region

Informed livestock sector policy development and priority setting is heavily dependent on a good understanding of livestock production systems. In a collaborative effort between the Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Livestock Research Institute, stock has been taken of where we have come from in agricultural systems classification and mapping; the current state of the art; and the directions in which research and data collection efforts need to take in the future. The book also addresses issues relating to the intensity and scale of production, moving from what is done to how it is done. The intensification of production is an area of particular importance, for it is in the intensive systems that changes are occurring most rapidly and where most information is needed on the implications that intensification of production may have for livelihoods, poverty alleviation, animal diseases, public health and environmental outcomes. A series of case studies is provided, linking livestock production systems to rural livelihoods and poverty and examples of the application of livestock production system maps are drawn from livestock production, now and in the future; livestock's impact on the global environment; animal and public health; and livestock and livelihoods. This book provides a formal reference to Version 5 of the global livestock production systems map, and to revised estimates of the numbers of rural poor livestock keepers, by country and livestock production system.

With the help of multiple partners, FAO has developed a global analytical framework for the multidimensional assessment of the performance of agroecology: the Tool for Agroecology Performance Evaluation (TAPE), which aims to: · Inform policy makers, development institutions, and other stakeholders by creating references to the multidimensional performance of agroecology and its potential to contribute to multiple SDGs; · Build knowledge and empower producers through the collective process of producing and sharing data and evidence based on their own practices; · Support agroecological transition processes at different scales, in different locations and different timeframes by proposing a diagnostic of performances over time and by identifying areas of strengths/weaknesses and enabling/disabling environments. This document provides guidance on how to assess agroecology by carrying out a diagnostic of production systems with regard to various dimensions (environmental, social, economic) and in a variety of contexts (production systems, communities, territories, agro-ecological zones, etc.). It explains how the analytical framework proposed by FAO was developed, what its underlying principles are and what its methodological components are. This document can be used to develop projects aiming to build evidence and collect data about sustainable agriculture and the particular role of agroecological approaches. It can also be used to analyze how existing efforts to measure agroecology can contribute to building globally relevant and harmonized evidence.

People use lots of water for drinking, cooking and washing, but significantly more for producing things such as food, paper and cotton clothes. The water footprint is an indicator of water use that looks at both direct and indirect water use of a consumer or producer. Indirect use refers to the 'virtual water' embedded in tradable goods and commodities, such as cereals, sugar or cotton. The water footprint of an individual, community or business is defined as the total volume of freshwater that is used to produce the goods and services consumed by the individual or community or produced by the business. This book offers a complete and up-to-date overview of the global standard on water footprint assessment as developed by the Water Footprint Network. More specifically it: o Provides a comprehensive set of methods for water footprint assessment o Shows how water footprints can be calculated for individual processes and products, as well as for consumers, nations and businesses o Contains detailed worked examples of how to calculate green, blue and grey water footprints o Describes how to assess the sustainability of the aggregated water footprint within a river basin or the water footprint of a specific product o Includes an extensive library of possible measures that can contribute to water footprint reduction