Climate Resilience in Livestock Farming: Egypt Model

Nowadays, the growth in the human population is putting pressure on the livestock industry, especially in developing countries, requiring a corresponding surge in livestock production to meet the demand for human consumption. Climate change is considered a challenge to the livestock industry as it affects livestock health and welfare. Resilience means an animal’s ability to cope with different challenges such as the environment and to be minimally affected or return rapidly to their normal health and production state. Thus, it is necessary to develop management practices for climate resilience, including the implementation of heat mitigation strategies in addition to helping farmers comprehend climate change and its impact on their agricultural systems.

Egypt is highly vulnerable to climate change; thus, adapting to the adverse impacts of climate change is an imperative necessity. The FAO roundtable workshop with the Egyptian dairy industry under the Scaling up Climate Ambition on Land use and Agriculture (SCALA) program that was held in Cairo in April 2024 stated that to ensure the long-term sustainability of livestock farming, a comprehensive Climate Smart Livestock (CSL) approach is necessary. Therefore, to consolidate all aspects of climate change in one document, Egypt prepared its National Climate Change Strategy (NCCS) 2050 to be a basic reference that ensures the integration of the climate change dimension into the general planning of all sectors. In this review, Egypt's efforts toward climate resilience in livestock production according to their national climate change strategy were discussed. This was achieved by gathering relevant information from recent publications collected from databases such as Scopus, Web of Science and PubMed. Publications were reviewed, and a summarization of mitigation strategies implemented under changing climatic conditions was made. The main strategies were outlined including using fans and water sprays to lower head loads, in addition to nutritional interventions to decrease methane emissions.