Across the world, livestock producers are facing a growing challenge: how to keep animals productive, healthy, and affordable amid mounting environmental stress and rising input costs.

From scorching temperatures in southern Europe to drought-driven feed shortages in East Africa, and heat-stressed poultry barns in parts of North America, the pressure to build resilient, adaptive food systems has never been more urgent.

And yet, while the global search for climate-smart agriculture often focuses on cutting-edge technology, we risk overlooking an invaluable asset already in our hands: traditional knowledge.

Based on my decade-long experience training livestock and aquaculture professionals in Nigeria, and ongoing research in the United Kingdom, I have seen how local, time-tested methods, when integrated with science, can form the foundation of scalable, sustainable livestock systems.

What some call “low-tech” is, in fact, resilient, circular, and resource-efficient, the exact traits modern agriculture needs today.

Global Pressures Are Reshaping Livestock Production
Worldwide, the agriculture sector is contending with:

• Rising feed prices: Global maize prices, for example, surged 19% in the first half of 2022 (FAO).
• Livestock heat stress: Poultry productivity drops dramatically above 30°C (86°F), a now-common threshold in tropical and temperate zones alike.
• Water scarcity: Agriculture accounts for over 70% of freshwater use globally, putting pressure on livestock and aquaculture systems in water-stressed regions.

In Nigeria, these challenges are not new—and they’ve produced practical responses:

• Rotational grazing protects rangelands from degradation.
• Ethnoveterinary practices reduce reliance on costly antibiotics.

Integrated livestock-aquaculture systems recycle waste and nutrients, cutting down both costs and emissions.
These strategies are not primitive. When enhanced with scientific tools like biosecurity protocols, feed conversion modeling, and weather-adaptive planning, they become robust, climate-smart systems.

Innovation Isn’t Always High-Tech: Sometimes It’s High-Wisdom
At the height of my fieldwork in Nigeria, I helped manage poultry and aquaculture demonstration farms while leading training programs for young agricultural entrepreneurs. We didn’t rely on imported models. We retooled what farmers already knew:

Using maggot meal and cassava peels to reduce feed costs by up to 30%.
Selecting heat-tolerant poultry breeds adapted to high temperatures and variable feed conditions.

This same model-blending traditional knowledge with evidence-based innovation is being quietly mirrored around the world, including through the work of the USDA Climate Hubs and FAO’s Global Livestock Environmental Assessment Model (GLEAM).
Sustainability is not about importing solutions; it’s about understanding what works locally and scaling it intentionally.

Elevating Global Knowledge in a Shared Food Future
For too long, agricultural innovation has flowed in one direction: from the Global North to the Global South. But today, the knowledge systems of smallholder farmers in Africa, Asia, and Latin America are increasingly informing how we respond to food system shocks, resource scarcity, and production risk.

The idea that “climate-smart agriculture” is a Western invention is flawed. In reality, rural communities across the Global South have quietly been practicing resilience for generations, not by choice, but by necessity.

In a world of globalized supply chains, no nation is immune to production shocks elsewhere. That makes it even more important to share, study, and scale innovations, regardless of origin.

A Call to Build Smarter from the Ground Up
We are not short on models. What we need is a broader mindset: one that welcomes diverse voices, values lived experience, and balances data with cultural insight.

Whether in Kaduna or Kentucky, Ibadan or Iowa, livestock producers need systems that are adaptive, accessible, and sustainable.

I continue to champion this approach through research, writing, and collaboration, because the future of food security depends not just on technology, but on how well we blend innovation with inherited wisdom.

Modupe Adesoba is a Food Systems Resilience and Sustainable Agriculture Expert. She has trained hundreds of livestock and aquaculture professionals across Nigeria and contributes to global agricultural research and knowledge-sharing initiatives. Her work focuses on climate-smart livestock systems, vocational education, and sustainable food design grounded in community practice.