The International Seminar on Tropical Animal Production (ISTAP) 2017

Food sovereignty can be defined as a right of the people to define their own food and sustainable farming systems which may ensure the right to healthy and culturally appropriate food. This term refers to communities who produce, distribute and consume food should also control the policies and the mechanism of food production. In tropical countries, where are mostly characterized as poor and underdeveloped, farmers have less power to control the food production mechanism and policies. Therefore, developing a farming structure such as technology, farm size, specialization, infrastructure, market access, farmer’s institution, etc. is a challenge of agricultural development. As part of farmer’s life, livestock production also significantly contributes to the tropical countries’ food sovereignty. Keeping livestock is the way of farm household to accumulate cash, to store the capital, to provide inputs such as manure for their primary crops, and to provide the high quality of food. As typically attached to smallholder in tropical countries, livestock (buffalo, cattle, goat, sheep, chicken, any other tropical livestock) are easy to raise, productive, and marketable and also able to utilize the marginal land and crop residues. However, the livestock development based on the tropical farming characteristic which is smallholder, low resources, and communal farms is left behind than other sector’s development. Policy maker should concern to balance the supply and demand of the food market based on empowering the smallholders to increase their capacity and capability. Smallholder farmers should be stimulated to participate on controlling the production mechanism particularly on production, distribution and even recognizing the consumption pattern of consumers. Moreover, measuring the livestock production contribution in developing the food sovereignty is essential especially to identify the competitive and comparative advantages among commodities and products. Livestock is a life of smallholder farmers in tropical countries. Involving smallholder farmers on controlling the production mechanism and policies imply of securing the food sovereignty of the countries.

Objectives

The objectives of the seminar are:

1. To provide a perspective and insight into tropical livestock production systems and sustainable local resources management contribution in food sovereignty,
2. To discuss the way of how to achieve a sustainable tropical resources management in increasing livestock production in the tropics,
3. To provide a forum in order to exchange information and ideas on livestock production systems in the tropics and its related problems.