Animal Agriculture |  |
Chapter SummaryFood ranks first among the needs of the human race, and is humanity's most important renewable resource. Human anxieties about food are as old as the human race. So are people’s interest in animals, which have contributed to human welfare since prehistoric times. Domestication of animals was an important part of agricultural growth and development. Today, the primary importance of domestic animals for people is as a source of food and other products, but animals are also important for companionship and other purposes (Chapter 4).
Of all the ills afflicting the human race, none seem more solvable—but concurrently more intractable—than hunger. The keenest competition for food is not between people of different regions or economic groups, but rather between people and the pests and diseases that attack food crops and plague animal agricultural production. Worldwide, insects and diseases claim an estimated one-fourth of all crops before they are harvested, and another estimated 15 to 20 percent are lost to insects and other pests following harvest. Similarly, diseases and internal and external parasites sharply reduce the potential productivity of animal agriculture (Chapter 23).
Food production is the nation's, indeed the world's, largest business. Agriculture is an indispensable base for the U.S. and world economies. Producing, processing, and distributing food employs more people than the automobile, steel, transportation, and utilities industries combined. More than two-thirds of the people of developing countries are directly involved in food production.
American agriculture has advanced more in the past 50 years than in all previous years of American history. However, evidence presented in this chapter illustrates clearly that agriculture is on a balance (Figure 1.14). From the beginning of agriculture, it has been a constant struggle to maintain this balance and thereby provide people with satisfaction of their wants and needs. Development of new and improved breeds of livestock and varieties of plants, coupled with continuing research, has increased the likelihood of humans achieving this goal, although there is an ever-present threat that the precarious balance will tip.
The balance may be disturbed by a number of forces. These include the ever-increasing population, reduction of the amount of acreage available per person, and the threat of economic distress, represented by low purchasing power. Disease, poor selection of breeds, inefficient management of resources, nutritional imbalances, predators, weather, and the threat or actuality of war inflict their various individual and combined effects on the comfort and nutritional well-being of people on a global basis.
The world is short on food and time. Today's hungry countries must compress the progress of decades into years if they are to adequately feed their increasing populations. There are three basic benchmarks to which the rate of increase in food production can be usefully related: (1) the rate of increase needed to keep pace with population growth, (2) the rate of increase needed to attain target rates of economic growth while maintaining stable prices, and (3) the rate of increase needed to eliminate the serious malnutrition common to many developing countries.
There is a deep and growing concern throughout the world over the outcome of the food:population race. During the next 11 years the world must prepare to feed an additional billion people. Significantly, approximately four-fifths of the billion persons will be added in the already food-deficient developing countries. This growing imbalance between food and people threatens the economic and political stability of developing countries.
The present generation is the first to possess the capability to essentially eliminate hunger. It will earn the gratitude of future generations by perceiving and acting on this possibility. Efforts to meet world food deficits should not overlook the need for the development of a balanced agricultural economy in each country. A viable animal agriculture is of vital importance in this respect. Animal production is important to maximal effective use of available natural resources as human needs continue to be served through animal agriculture.
Conditions favoring animal production include (1) the requirements of an expanding human population; (2) the merits and/or special qualities of animal products; (3) the need for animals as a source of power; (4) the need for animals for mental health and personal satisfaction; (5) the role of animals in maintaining soil fertility and water quality and conservation; (6) the flexibility of animals as transformers of feed into food and other useful products; and (7) the economic, social, and institutional forces that favor greater utilization of animal products and the practices of animal husbandry.
The key to sustained animal agriculture is the proper use of natural resources: air, water, land, and energy. Farm animals are kept for food production under a broad diversity of systems. The extremes vary from ruminants grazing rangeland to highly integrated confinement systems for poultry and swine.
In this chapter present trends in human and animal populations were surveyed. An attempt was made to present an overview of animal agriculture. It was noted that because forages and roughages can be grown on land where tillage is impossible or impractical, ruminants are not necessarily competitive with humans for agronomic crops. Instead, by utilizing the grasses of such rough land, ruminants provide an added source of nutritious food for humans. It was noted that malnutrition is both a consequence and a cause of underdevelopment. Improved nutrition among children of developing countries is important to their growth and subsequent contributions to their respective national economy.Changes of diet are more important than changes of dynasty or even of religion.
George Orwell (1903–1950)
English author
Inadequate nutrition is one of humanity's oldest problems. Today the greatest problem facing people worldwide is not nuclear warfare, pollution, taxes, or inflation; instead, it is the problem of not enough to eat. Current political and military problems will fade as the importance of world food supplies comes into sharper focus.Give a hungry child a cup of milk and he will be nourished for a day, but give his family a heifer and show them how to care for it and they will drink milk the rest of their lives.
M. E. Boyer
The flow of life is a continuum, delicate in its balances, intricate in its nuances, demanding in its observances. For animal agriculture, indeed for all agriculture, to survive, it must be in harmony with its natural surroundings. It is up to people to control their agriculture and thereby feed themselves and their kind, who will inherit the earth. People must somehow combat and defeat their foes and achieve an agricultural balance in which their wants and needs are met by an ample supply of nutritious animal and plant foods. Human needs are best served through a viable, dynamic animal agriculture.
The balance of the book is dedicated to an understanding of the animals that serve humanity—their contributions to people and society—and the scientific disciplines that describe them and the production practices/systems under which they are managed and cared for. To the authors it is an exciting, enlightening, interesting story. Please enjoy! |
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2003 McGraw-Hill Higher Education