By: Mariángela Ramírez, World Bank Senior Agriculture Specialist, Carlos Arce, World Bank Consultant and Yeimy Carolina Castillo C., World Bank Consultant.

Imagine a farm in Colombia’s Orinoquía region where cattle graze among native trees, the soil regains its vitality, and productivity increases. What once seemed idealistic is now becoming a reality for Orinoquía’s livestock sector.

This transformation was evident at a recent Sustainable Livestock event hosted by the World Bank and held in Bogotá, Colombia, which showcased the economic and environmental viability of sustainable livestock practices and technologies. The event brought together producers, companies, the public sector, academia, financial institutions, and development organizations to identify key actions to scale up these practices and technologies.

With over a hundred participants, the gathering was more than just a technical workshop. Delegations from Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Uruguay enriched discussions by sharing their experiences.

This event served as a South-South knowledge exchange platform to share lessons learned from decades of work on sustainable livestock led by Colombia and other Latin American countries. It also kicked off the collaborative development of a clear and realistic roadmap to scale up the sustainable livestock model in Colombia.

Colombia’s need for livestock sector transformation

Colombia has a long-standing livestock tradition, with nearly 39 million hectares dedicated to this activity. However, the current model faces major challenges, including low efficiency, inadequate land use, and vulnerability to climate change. Adding to this is the sector's significant environmental footprint, which accounts for 15% of the country’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Given this impact and the fact that over 660,000 rural families depend on livestock, transforming Colombia’s extensive livestock management model is not only desirable, but also urgent and achievable.

One key challenge is to reduce environmental harm while simultaneously securing and enhancing the incomes of those working in livestock production. This is difficult to achieve, but the work undertaken by Colombia to date shows it can be done.

Sustainable livestock progress in Colombia

For more than 20 years, Colombia has invested in research and development of sustainable livestock practices and technologies to shift away from the traditional model. So far, over 4,000 farms have adopted these innovations, supported by initiatives such as the Mainstreaming Sustainable Cattle Ranching Project and the World Bank’s BioCarbon Fund Initiative for Sustainable Forest Landscapes (ISFL).

More than 100,500 hectares are now under sustainable management where silvopastoral systems have shown to increase milk production by up to 36% while reducing GHG emissions by up to 25% per liter of milk. This translates into rising and more stable incomes for those working in the sector.

Sustainable livestock management represents a paradigm shift—one that boosts productivity and farmer incomes, strengthens the sector’s resilience to climate shocks, reduces GHG emissions, and improves animal welfare and biodiversity. However, these sustainable livestock models won’t be adopted as a default. They require farmers’ work, public policy, and mobilization of technical and financial resources to ensure adoption at scale.

The Bogotá event: A turning point

The following key pillars for scaling sustainable livestock were identified during the Sustainable Livestock event held in April in Bogotá:

• Empowering producers as leaders of climate transformation in their territories;
• Fostering responsible markets;
• Enabling financing, including credit and payment for results; and
• Establishing coherent public policies that reward sustainable production.

The consensus across various discussions was clear: scaling this transformation requires knowledge transfer and technical assistance, market-driven incentives and resources, and collaboration among value chain actors.

The main outcome of the event was the creation of a national roadmap to guide efforts through to 2030. The roadmap outlines over 20 priority actions, assigns implementation responsibilities, and sets clear deadlines.

Among the most significant milestones are:

• The implementation of a Sustainable Livestock Observatory by December 2026;
• Pilot programs for investment credit and results-based payment instruments by December 2026;
• Launching a national strategy for sustainable livestock product markets by March 2027; and
• Securing funding for livestock extension services by June 2027.

What’s next?

The path is set for sustainable livestock management in Colombia’s Orinoquía region. The challenge now is to move from pilot experiences to a systemic transformation that reaches thousands of producers and livestock hectares across the country—making sustainable livestock the new normal. This requires a committed private sector, active national and local governments, and an empowered civil society.

Looking ahead, several key stakeholders—including the Alliance of Biodiversity International and CIAT, the Center for Research in Sustainable Agricultural Production Systems (CIPAV), the National Federation of Cattle Ranchers (FEDEGAN), Fundación Alisos, the Sustainable Livestock Roundtable, and the World Bank—have committed to facilitate coordination among actors involved in the sustainable livestock roadmap. This coordination will focus on implementing short-term actions, and defining mechanisms to ensure the roadmap is adopted by the livestock sector as an effective tool for coordinating action and tracking progress.

Inspired by the momentum in Colombia, we must now create more opportunities to share experiences and facilitate the adoption of sustainable livestock management across Latin America and around the world.

Learn more about Colombia’s ISFL program.