This paper describes and assesses the current status of livestock production systems, the drivers of global livestock production, and the major trends in such production. The analysis covers the six major livestock species: cattle and buffaloes, goats and sheep, pigs and chickens. Global drivers of the livestock sector include economic growth and income, demographic and land use changes, dietar...

Livestock are an important component of rural households and gendered livelihood practices throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Widespread within the development literature is the belief in the livestock ladder, with poorer households often owning small stock and wealthier households owning large stock, with the assumption that poor households can utilize livestock to build their asset base and overt...

BACKGROUND Micro-organisms transmitted from vertebrate animals - including livestock - to humans account for an estimated 60% of human pathogens. Micro-organisms can be transmitted through inhalation, ingestion, via conjunctiva or physical contact. Close contact with animals is crucial for transmission. The role of intensity and type of contact patterns between livestock and humans for disease ...

Rarely human communities coexist in harmony with large predators. Most often communities suffer due to predation on their stock while large carnivores suffer losses and at times extirpation due to retaliation. We examine the mechanisms permitting the coexistence of Asiatic lions (Panthera leo persica) and pastoral communities (Maldharis) in the Gir forests, India. We monitored six Maldhari sett...

Recently disturbed and ‘control’ (i.e. less recently disturbed) soils in the Mojave Desert were compared for their vulnerability to wind erosion, using a wind tunnel, before and after being experimentally trampled. Before trampling, control sites had greater cyanobacterial biomass, soil surface stability, threshold friction velocities (TFV; i.e. the wind speed required to move soil particles), ...

Disease acts as a negative influence on the livestock production system, thus setting off a cascading affect of low production, low income, and subsistent livelihood. The consequences of animal diseases in livestock can be complex and generally go well beyond the immediate effects on affected producers. These diseases have numerous impacts, including productivity losses for the livestock sector...

Livestock contributes directly to the livelihoods and food security of almost a billion people and affects the diet and health of many more. With estimated standing populations of 1.43 billion cattle, 1.87 billion sheep and goats, 0.98 billion pigs, and 19.60 billion chickens, reliable and accessible information on the distribution and abundance of livestock is needed for a many reasons. These ...

CHEMISTS years ago developed methods by which they could analyze feeds and have the constituents sum to TOO percent. Chemists and physiologists concluded therefrom that protein, fats, carbohydrates, and certain mineral elements were the only nutrients animals required. Data from experiments made it clear, however, that the quality of the ration and its ability to promote growth could not be pre...

Recent pharmacokinetic studies (Zhou, 1989; Jori, 1990a) point out that hydrophobic photosensitising dyes with a porphyrin type macrocyclic skeleton exhibit excellent tumour-localising properties both in vitro and in vivo. Such dyes, systemically injected to experimental animals, become largely associated with serum lipoproteins (Kessel, 1990); one lipoprotein class, namely low-density lipoprot...

Large herbivore livestock and wildlife in Mongolia depend almost entirely for substance on forage standing crop produced each year on natural pastureland. Consequently, both livestock and wildlife are continuously subject to environmental risk, especially drought and severe winter storms, while livestock are also subject to financial risk. As consumption-based livestock production changes to co...