Geographical determinants and environmental implications of livestock production intensification in Asia
Introduction
The term “Livestock revolution” has been used to describe the rapid expansion of livestock production in developing countries (Delgado et al., 1999). Table 1 shows similar rising trends in consumption and production across the globe, with highest rates in the developing world. If trends in production and consumption are rather parallel, it is nevertheless proposed that the growth in production is driven by demand, the latter being mainly fuelled by population growth, urbanisation and income growth in developing countries (De Haan et al., 1998).
Globally, this growth trend is not uniformly spread. As shown in Table 1, the annual growth rate for meat production between 1982 and 1994 was 5.4% for the developing world and only 1.1% in the developed world. Furthermore, among the developing countries, Asia has the fastest developing livestock sector (annual growth rate for meat production over the same period was 8.4% in China and 5.7% in Southeast Asia), as a consequence of faster growth in human population, economy and urbanisation.
Recent analysis (Delgado et al., 2002) predicts that this trend will endure over the next 20 years, although the pace of growth may dwindle. Over the 1997–2020 period, annual growth of consumption is predicted to average 3.0% in China, 3.3% in Southeast Asia and 2.8% for the developing world.
The livestock sector is responding to this surge in demand for livestock products with some drastic transformations. These transformations basically take four different forms (De Haan et al., 1998). First, livestock production tends to concentrate in areas favoured by cheap input supplies (particularly feed), and by good market outlets for livestock products. Such conditions are found in the vicinity of large cities. Second, the proportion of livestock production met by specialised and intensive industrial systems is increasing rapidly, as those systems react faster to growing demand. The rapid growth in scale is general, and the new settlements directly compete with land-based, small-scale production, sometimes supplanting them. The industrialisation of production leads to a disconnection between livestock activities and cropping activities. This happens on a functional level (large-scale livestock production shifting to industrial type management), and on a spatial level (industrial livestock activities moving towards peri-urban areas). Third, the production is shifting from ruminants (e.g. cattle, sheep, goats), to monogastrics (e.g. pigs, laying hens, broilers, ducks), that have a better feed conversion ratio. Fourth, vertical integration along the land–livestock–food chain creates economies of scope.
Section snippets
Potential impacts of intensive livestock production
The geographical concentration of livestock in areas with little or no agricultural land leads to high impacts on the environment (water, soil, air and biodiversity), mainly related to manure and waste water mismanagement. Nutrient overloads can result from several forms of mismanagement amongst which are over-fertilisation of crops, over feeding of fish ponds, and improper waste disposal of agricultural (e.g. livestock) or industrial wastes. Nutrient overloads in the crop–livestock systems
Framework and objective of the study
The Livestock, Environment and Development (LEAD) Initiative is an inter-institutional project with the secretariat in Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO). The work of the Initiative targets the protection and enhancement of natural resources as affected by livestock production and processing in the context of poverty reduction and public health enhancement, through better policy formulation for appropriate forms of livestock development. Aiming at enhanced policy
Study area
The study was limited to South, East and South-east Asia as defined by FAOSTAT (FAO, 2003). Asia was selected because it has (1) the highest livestock production regional growth in the world, mainly due to rapid expansion of industrial systems, (2) high use of mineral fertilisers and (3) relatively high livestock densities. Developed countries within Asia (Japan and South Korea) were not considered, neither Pakistan and Mongolia in which intensive livestock production systems are hardly
Nutrient content in livestock excretion
Table 3 gives an overview of the standard annual nutrient excretion factor per animal place and the average live weight for all the considered livestock categories. Differences in excretions are large between the different intensity classes, especially for dairy cows and milking buffaloes: excretions are more than 90% lower for intensity class four than for intensity class one. This is due to a difference of more than 90% in yield, to the weight of animals and to the quality of feed used. It is
Conclusion
Livestock distributions show two different patterns in the study area. On one hand the ruminant dominated areas, mostly in the North and West, in which biomass densities can reach high levels. Production systems are mixed or extensive, mostly traditional, and the livestock densities follow agro-ecological patterns. On the other hand, the south-eastern part of the study area is dominated by monogastric species. There, under market pressure, and in a framework of weak regulations, traditional
Acknowledgements
This research is supported by the multi-institutional LEAD Initiative (http://lead.virtualcenter.org/selector.htm). The authors thank Henning Steinfeld and the “Area Wide Integration” pilot project team members for valuable inputs and comments but remains solely responsible for any error.
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