ABSTRACT
Livestock provide a variety of food products in form of meat, milk and eggs. Livestock keeping strongly interacts with both the social and ecological environment. The social environment constitutes human beings who keep and use livestock products while the ecological environment constitutes natural resources such as water and insects. The Lake Chilwa Basin Climate Change Adaptation Programme (LCBCCAP) used two ‘archetypal forms’ of livestock production systems: weak-Ecological Modernization Livestock System (EMLS) and strong-EMLS. Based on community choice of livestock types, the programme supported vulnerable local communities with chickens and pigs since 2013 and later from 2016 with goats to build their resilience against climate change through improved food security and household income. Overall, chicken and piggery farming have yielded positive results on building social resilience as seen through sales of pigs and chicken. On ecological resilience, manure application, especially from pigs has contributed to soil nutrient enrichment through improved yields from the farmers. The dual approach in livestock production is a lesson that needs to be replicated in many livestock livelihoods programmes.
