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Livestock & the Environment : Meeting the challenge

Year of publication 1996

Pages 12

Author Cees de Haan, Henning Steinfeld and Harvey Blackburn;Animal Production and Health Division

Product type Book (stand-alone)

Edition 1

Synopsis (short abstract) Demand for meat, milk and meat is soaring, and the world's livestock sector is growing at an unprecedented rate. This puts great pressure on the global natural resource base and, as demand continues to soar. ways must be found by which livestock production can be increased without damaging the environment in which that production has to take place. Moreover, for hundreds of millions of small, poor farmers, animal draught power and nutrient recycling through manure compensates for unattainable ac cess to tractors and fertilizer. Livestock are often also the only capital reserve of farming households, to be sold when times are hard. Livestock, in one way or another, are critical to sustaining poor farmers. Here it is upon the many environmental benefits of keeping livestock that policies must be based. Livestock policies must, in future, ensure that the environment is not jeopardized. We ignore at our peril the interaction between livestock and the world in which we live, its natural reso urces and the environment on which we depend for our survival.

Language English

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