Livestock farming as a factor of environmental, social and economic stability with special reference to research

Scientific advances and the present methods of technology for food production, preservation, processing, transport and marketing are forcing rapid change, throughout the developing and marginal regions of the world. Only time will show whether the present pace of change will, on balance, have an overall positive or negative effect on the future state of affairs. This change should be managed to prevent devastating effects not only on traditional animal production but also on the environment as a whole allowing for a planned evolutionary process so that humans and the livestock and domestic animals they care for can adopt the new socio-economic conditions, they both must face. Livestock-related development projects are required to be efficient and economically sustainable, but also diversified, clean, of high biological added value, and integrated in a healthy, dynamic and renewed agricultural and environmental context. The need for a more multidisciplinary systemic research and wider choice of subjects is strongly recommended. On the topic of sustainable growth, without promoting less progressive approaches and uneconomical environmental policies, we run the risk today of overhastily accepting and applying new alternatives that might neglect the fundamental factors of adaptability and time; this could be a destructive experience for livestock production especially in marginal areas. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.