Redesigning Animal Agriculture

12 Livestock – Fulfilling Social,
Environmental and Economic
Roles – is it Possible?
David L. Swain 1 and Margaret Gill 2
1 CSIRO Livestock Industries, Australia;
2 School of Geosciences, College of Physical Sciences,
University of Aberdeen, UK
Abstract
History has shown that when societies fail to consider the sustainable use of natural resources they
eventually collapse. Science has enabled modern agriculture to increase productivity. In developed
countries farmers have successfully provided an abundance of food and in so doing achieved economic
success. There is a growing recognition that future livestock farming systems need to simultaneously
address social, environmental and economic goals. With the advent of widespread environmental degradation,
molecular technologies to redesign animals and a disconnected consumer, it appears more
important than ever to question how we might derive resilient and sustainable agricultural systems.
Economic drivers are inevitably the most powerful incentives for change within both an interventionist
and neo-liberal market framework. Environmental degradation is often a by-product of agricultural
intensification resulting from farmers responding to consumer demands for cheaper food.
Societies in developed countries have become disconnected from modern agriculture and thus consumer
action may not always be able to target the perpetrators of the problems. Policies by their very
nature take a broad approach and are thus insensitive tools for capturing the opportunities presented
by the diversity of livestock production systems. Reconnecting farmers with consumers via mechanisms
which encourage more direct engagement can provide a forum to address environmental concerns.
In so doing this helps to minimize the conflicts between social, environmental and economic
goals and builds knowledge and understanding.
Introduction
The first archaeological evidence of the
domestication of animals by man dates
from around 10,000 years ago. Over the
intervening millennia, livestock and their
husbandry have adapted to ‘society’s’
changing needs and to changes in the
local environments. It is relatively easy
to understand how systems adapted to
changes in the past. In the current millennium,
the rate and complexity of change
will require a more proactive approach
to designing livestock systems which are
fit for a future where sustainable resource
use will be a priority objective. This proactive
approach will provide an opportunity
to consider, in advance, the contribution
which livestock systems make on a sustainable
society.
©CAB International 2007. Redesigning Animal Agriculture
204 (eds D. Swain, E. Charmley, J. Steel and S. Coffey)