review · Frontiers in Veterinary Science
Climate change disrupts semi-arid agricultural systems in Southern Africa, threatening food security and livestock welfare. A synthesised framework of bioenergetics and agroecology highlights climate-smart livestock nutrition through precision feeding, thermal resilience strategies, and alternative feeds. Potential regional energy feeds include small cereal grains such as sorghum and pearl millet, alongside protein sources like cowpea and marama bean. Wild browse species, including Vachellia, Colophospermum mopane, and marula, offer dry season supplements rich in protein, minerals, and electrolytes. Opportunities for circular feeding systems involve oilseed cakes from macadamia, castor, and Jatropha, alongside black soldier fly larvae, phototrophic algae, and yeasts. In addition, thermo-functionally enhanced diets incorporate synthetic and natural antioxidants, phytogenics, biotic agents, and electrolytes. These strategies support livestock resilience across the livestock-energy-water-food nexus to guide regional farming practices, policies, and ongoing research.
Livestock are vital for livelihoods and food security across Southern Africa, yet semi-arid production systems face severe climate disruption and declining availability of conventional feeds. Identifying climate-resilient alternative feedstuffs and dietary supplements helps protect animal welfare and productivity during droughts and heat stress, underpinning community resilience and sustainable food production across the region.
This work provides a conceptual foundation for animal feed manufacturers, livestock producers, and agricultural policymakers seeking alternatives to conventional feed ingredients. Potential applications include developing formulated feeds and supplements based on native grains, browse, insects, and industrial processing by-products. As a conceptual framework and literature synthesis, the findings represent early-stage research that requires further in-depth testing and formulation before commercial deployment in regional feed supply chains.
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Climate change is disrupting the semi-arid agricultural systems in Southern Africa, where livestock is crucial to food security and livelihoods. This review evaluates the bioenergetic and agroecological scope for climate-adaptive livestock nutrition in the region. An analysis of the literature on climate change implications on livestock nutrition and thermal welfare in the regional agroecological context was conducted. The information gathered was systematically synthesized into tabular summaries of the fundamentals of climate-smart bioenergetics, thermoregulation, livestock heat stress defence mechanisms, the thermo-bioactive feed components, and potentially climate-smart feed resources in the region. The analysis supports the adoption of climate-smart livestock nutrition when conceptualized as precision feeding combined with dietary strategies that enhance thermal resilience in livestock, and the adaptation of production systems to the decline in availability of conventional feedstuffs by incorporating climate-smart alternatives. The keystone potential climate-smart alternative feedstuffs are identified to be the small cereal grains, such as sorghum ( Sorghum bicolor ) and pearl millet ( Pennisetum glaucum ) as dietary energy sources, the native legumes, such as the cowpea ( Vigna unguiculata ) and the marama bean ( Tylosema esculentum ) as protein sources, wild browse Fabaceae trees such as Vachellia spp. and Colophospermum mopane , which provide dry season and drought supplementary protein, minerals, and antioxidants, the non-fabaceous tree species such as the marula tree ( Sclerocarya birrea ), from which animals consume the energy and electrolyte-rich fresh fruit or processed pulp. Feedstuffs for potential circular feeding systems include the oilseed cakes from the macadamia ( Macadamia integrifolia ) nut, the castor ( Ricinus communis ), and Jatropha ( Jatropha curcas ) beans, which are rich in protein and energy, insect feed protein and energy, primarily the black soldier fly larvae ( Hermetia illucens ), and microbial protein from phototrophic algae ( Spirulina , Chlorella ), and yeasts ( Saccharomyces cerevisiae ). Additives for thermo-functionally enhanced diets include synthetic and natural anti-oxidants, phytogenics, biotic agents (prebiotics, probiotics, synbiotics, postbiotics), and electrolytes. The review presents a conceptual framework for climate-smart feeding strategies that enhance system resilience across the livestock-energy-water-food nexus, to inform broader, in-depth research, promote climate-smart farm practices and support governmental policies which are tailored to the agroecology of the region.
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DOI: 10.3389/fvets.2025.1507152
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