Livestock grazing affects over 60% of the world's agricultural lands and can influence rangeland ecosystem services and the quantity and quality of wildlife habitat, resulting in changes in biodiversity. Concomitantly, livestock grazing has the potential to be detrimental to some wildlife species while benefiting other rangeland organisms. Many imperiled grouse species require rangeland landsca...

The livestock sector’s potential for contributing to economic development and poverty reduction has so far remained largely untapped, and it is difficult to identify a single developing country where growth of the sector has been unambiguously pro-poor. Livestock have long been treated as an appendage to agriculture, with both policy-makers and development practitioners giving higher priority t...

This paper discusses the information needs of urban and peri-urban livestock keepers and the various information sources used and their effectiveness in disseminating livestock information. Mixed method approach was the methodology used in the study whereby quantitative data was gathered using questionnaires while qualitative data was gathered using in-depth interviews and participant observati...

Managing the environmental risk associated with livestock production is a significant challenge. Nitrogen and phosphorus are commonly implicated as the sources of ground and surface water quality problems associated with livestock production. The degree of imbalance between these nutrient inputs and the managed nutrient outputs for a livestock operation defines the magnitude of potential enviro...

Certain synthetic and naturally occurring chemicals, particularly those found in some range plants, may interact with livestock and poultry in the presence of activating light to produce photosensitization. Such photosensitization may have serious implications for livestock producers as a result of causing reduced performance of and even death of affected animals. The mechanisms producing photo...

Numerous factors affect livestock production and productivity. In this chapter we will address those that are of paramount importance: climate, nutrition, and health aspects. In initial section we will review the effects of climate on livestock productivity and provide examples of livestock adaptation to climate constraints such as the Bos indicus cattle breeds adapted to hot weather and the fa...

This paper presents an overview of the trends in building permits issued for livestock facilities between 1996 and 2001 for 42 municipalities in the livestock intensive region of southwestern Ontario. Most of the permits were issued for barns less than 100 livestock units. Most of the permits for large facilities (larger than 500 livestock units) were exclusively for hog farms. There was no spa...

Agricultural fairs exhibiting livestock are increasingly implicated in human Shiga-toxigenic Escherichia coli O157:H7 (STEC O157:H7) outbreaks. To estimate livestock STEC O157:H7 prevalence at US fairs, we collected 2,919 fecal specimens at 29 county fairs in 2 states and at 3 state fairs in 2002. Fly pools were also collected. STEC O157:H7 was isolated from livestock at 31 (96.9%) of 32 fairs,...

INTRODUCTION: Livestock production and associated products offer substantial opportunities for economic growth and poverty reduction for rural households in Zambia. However, smallholder livestock producers are often characterized by low livestock market participation. Among the many reasons cited in the literature are producer remoteness from the main urban market centers and poor road infrastr...

The livestock production system is considered equally sensitive to climate change as that of core agriculture system and at the same time livestock itself is also contributing to the phenomenon. The present paper attempts to analyze the sensitivity of livestock productivity in rainfed regions to climatic variability, significance of climate change with respect to Indian livestock and mitigation...