Livestock Sector-Changing Scenario

LIVESTOCK SECTOR-CHANGING SCENARIO
Dr.T.P.Sethumadhavan
Rapidly increasing demand for livestock products, along with the changes in international trade, is placing pressure on India's livestock sector both to expand and adapt. This adaptation takes the form of two major shifts - a shift in livestock functions and species, and a shift in agro-ecological and geographical zones, involving structural and technological changes.
Today, non-food functions of livestock are generally in decline and are being replaced by cheaper and more convenient substitutes. At the same time, the asset, petty cash and insurance functions of livestock are being replaced by financial institutions as even remote rural areas enter the monetary economy. Due to mechanization, animal as draught power is declining. Manure continues to be important in mixed farming but its role in overall nutrient supply is diminishing because of the competitive price and ease of management of inorganic fertilizer. Although demand for natural fibres is high, there are a growing number of synthetic substitutes for wool and leather.
Recently there is an increasing selectivity to the parts of the animal used for food. Now the trend is towards lean meat, and other products - such as offal, blood and bone - are being used industrially, or recycled as feed. Thus, there is a trend from multi-purpose to single purpose animals, with animal protein the overriding objective. This is also reflected in the choice and manipulation of genotypes, which favor specialization over product diversity. Another trend is the growing importance of monogastrics as economic converters of concentrate feed.
Livestock production is growing faster in the moist parts of the region, and it is moving closer to urban settlements. In Asia, as in the rest of the world, it is the humid and sub-humid zones that still offer a large potential for agricultural production. Human populations are increasing over-proportionally in these areas while other zones, such as arid and highland areas have reached a level of population density above which significant increases can no longer be sustained. Livestock populations are increasing faster in the moister areas than in other zones.
To some extent, this can be explained by a continued close integration of animals in mixed systems. More importantly, however, this phenomenon reflects the increasing "urbanization" of livestock production, influenced by urban demand, good market access and adequate infrastructure. This type of livestock production is largely independent of agro-ecological conditions and far outpaces other land-based systems.
This trend is in line with the observed shift to monogastric species and poultry. In some rural areas, the lack of infrastructure, economies of scale and insufficient marketing facilities face heavy competition from urban production, so that livestock production is limited to subsistence levels. This trend towards urbanization is clearly not sustainable in the long term, mainly because of waste disposal and environmental problems as well as public health implications.
Structural changes. Two important structural changes apply across production systems: a general growth in scale and a trend away from horizontal to vertical integration. Levels of livestock production and processing are increasing in response to technological development, market requirements and insufficient returns to labour in traditional systems. Where alternative employment opportunities exist, such as in the rapidly industrialized countries of the region, traditional subsistence-orientated livestock farming is often abandoned, opening up market and expansion opportunities for other farmers or commercial entrepreneurs.
In particular, poultry production has often developed from a simple farm operation to a complex vertical operation of related industries and enterprises, including grain production for animal feeds, feed mills, slaughterhouses and processing plants, food chain stores and wholesale enterprises.
Further structural changes relate to the new trends in the importance of different production systems. The growth potential for extensive grazing and roughage production is limited. In response to increased population pressure, good pastureland is being converted into cropland, leaving increasingly poorer land for grazing and mixed farming. Industrial production of pigs and poultry is therefore increasing relative to production from grazing and mixed farming systems. Pork and broiler production will also increase relative to ruminant meat production. This is a direct result of the better conversion efficiencies of concentrate feed in pigs and poultry.
Faced with increasing resource constraints that stem from a small land base, countries resort to importing meat and other livestock products to satisfy the growing demand. This is evidenced by a growing trade deficit in these products. The developing countries of Asia had a net trade deficit of 313,000 tons of ruminant meat and a net trade surplus of 409,000 tons of monogastric meat. While the region as a whole is self-sufficient in all livestock products, there are important differences between the sub-regions. Australia and New Zealand make up for the deficit of the other sub-regions, particularly for beef and milk.
Technological changes. In line with the structural changes outlined above, the development, transfer and adaptation of technologies will focus on improving efficiency of feed utilization and increasing animal productivity. Feed requires land for production and this continues to be the limiting factor to the sector's expansion even if countries resort to feed imports. Continuing industrial development in the region will also make traditional livestock raising practices less competitive because of diminishing returns to labour, even though this process will be very gradual.
We are therefore witnessing a dualistic mode of development, with two conflicting components. First, a modern, demand-driven and capital-intensive sector, producing poultry meat, eggs, pork, and sometimes milk, increasingly uses state-of-the-art technologies. It is rapidly expanding to meet urban demand but it is also susceptible to market upheavals; it generates little employment, poses great environmental risks because it tends to concentrate in areas with good market access, and it creates a number of new challenges for human and veterinary public health. Technology uptake has been fast, driven by commercial interests. At the same time, a traditional, resource-driven and labour-intensive sector continues to provide a multitude of services to subsistence-oriented farms. While not efficient in terms of introduced inputs, this sector uses resources of little or no alternative uses, and for the same reason, its potential to expand beyond moderate growth rates is constrained by low technology uptake, insufficient market facilities and infrastructure, and small economies of scale. Often, these systems are closed cycles of nutrients, farm labour, energy, etc. Unless these cycles are broken, technology uptake will remain constrained.
Production system pathways. Livestock systems develop in response to resource endowment and market opportunities. Grazing systems have limited scope for expansion. Mixed farming systems will see continued intensification and important growth, with livestock based on crop by-products and surplus. Some productivity gains can be achieved by further enhancing nutrient and energy flows between the crop and livestock component. Mixed farming system may be threatened by the disappearance of livestock, triggered by population pressure, fragmentation of arable land, poverty and lack of market access.
Under more favorable agro-ecological and market conditions, industrial systems have emerged, in parallel with, and sometimes supplanting, mixed farming systems. Because of generally poor infrastructure and institutions, these are usually established close to demand centers, resulting in excessive animal densities, nutrient surpluses and other environmental and human health problems that highlight an "urban trap": while profitable in the short run, these systems cannot be sustained in urban or peri-urban environments. Such considerations caused, for example, Singapore, to abandon livestock production altogether. The answer is to allow specialized commercial production to operate in an area-wide concept where nutrient balances are maintained and the land's capacity to absorb animal waste is respected.
The evolutionary and significant trends described above must, if they are to be sustainable and progressive, take into account their impact on the public domain or public goods. These face four main challenges which include: the contribution of livestock to food security and food production; the protection of the environment in the face of increasingly intensive farming methods; the maintenance and generation of social equity which may be jeopardized by industrialization and job loss; and the protection of human health and welfare. It is therefore essential that policy makers and planners responsible for livestock development define future strategies in the broader context of human development and the sustainable utilization of our limited natural resources.
Modern pressures towards "development" are largely driven by rich nations. The materialistic demands of the affluent result in a growing proportion of human society exploiting, and in many cases plundering, the Earth's natural resources. The rate of this "progress" in the developed world is such that less fortunate communities are left behind and become more and more disadvantaged. This discrepancy in the distribution of wealth and opportunity is evident not only in the commercial and industrial sectors, but perhaps is even more pertinent to the more fundamental agricultural sector, and in particular the livestock sub sector. It is probably here that the divide between the rich and the poor and the intrinsically related resource management problems are most prominent and deserve greater consideration.
In the world of animal production, we observe a rapid growth and intensification of production processes.
Emerging diseases. Avian influenza, Classical Swine Fever and Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy ("Mad Cow Disease").
Often it is more economically attractive to protect only the more intensive production units in proximity to markets. Model for developing countries? It is against this background that we must examine more closely the ongoing trend towards the intensification of livestock production. We may take, as an extreme example, the intensive animal production in the Netherlands, where some 20 million pigs and cattle are confined on a land area of about 33,000 sq km and where milk output alone is equal to that of the whole of developing Africa.
Conclusion: livestock form an invaluable resource to many people, in particular the rural societies living in more remote environments, and yet at the same time livestock may be manipulated, perhaps unnaturally, to meet the specific and sophisticated demands of the higher income classes and, in the process, contribute to inequality, to environmental degradation and to public health problems. The FAO Animal Production and Health Division has tasked itself with addressing such fundamental issues in order to contribute to the future development of the livestock sector towards the challenges of the next century.
Challenge for policymakers. Interactions between livestock and the environment are many and complex - a challenge for policymakers for whom socio-economic factors are likely to be far more pressing and politically sensitive. Putting the environment in the forefront does not mean that only environmental objectives count. On the contrary, environmental goals can only be effectively tackled if accompanied by sound economic policies.
Opportunities to tap the immense development potential that livestock offer, while nevertheless minimizing environmental damage, are many. Awareness, political will and readiness to act are growing among all those involved and should ensure that the problems are no longer ignored but effectively tackled.