Livestock and Food Security: The Relevance of Animal Science to the Hungry Poor

Abstract

Livestock play a major role in basic food-security, which in turn is the first principle of national security and international security. Food-insecure populations emigrate and undermine precarious States. Even at the level of more luxurious food-security expressed in UN ideals, livestock products are critical. Outside single product industrial farms, livestock provide multiple outputs, including: high-quality protein; income; draught and traction power; nutrient recycling; various edible and non-edible by-products, and they reproduce themselves. Children and reproductive-age women, whose diets are deficient in amino acids not readily accessible from plant foods or in micronutrients, benefit..