The role of livestock in developing countries

Mark A. Mirando and Lawrence P. Reynolds

J Anim Sci 2007. 85:2787.

doi: 10.2527/jas.2007-85-11-2787

The online version of this article, along with updated information and services, is located on
the World Wide Web at:
http://jas.fass.org/cgi/content/full/85/11/2787

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 Editorial
The role of livestock in developing countries
In this issue of the Journal of Animal Science, you
will find an invited review by T. F. Randolph and col-
leagues of the International Livestock Research Insti-
tute, Nairobi, Kenya; the Swiss Tropical Institute, Ba-
sel; Cornell University, Ithaca, NY; the National Insti-
tute of Public Health, Cuernavaca, Mexico; the
University of Toronto, Canada; the International Po-
tato Centre, Lima, Peru; the University of California,
Davis; and the International Food Policy Research In-
stitute in Washington, DC. This article is based on a
presentation made at the symposium entitled, “Interna-
tional Animal Agriculture: Global Livestock and Poul-
try Issues” at the Joint Annual Meeting of the American
Dairy Science Association, the Poultry Science Associa-
tion, the Asociación Mexicana de Producción Animal,
and the American Society of Animal Science (publisher
of the Journal of Animal Science), held July 8–12, 2007,
in San Antonio, Texas.
We invited Dr. Randolph and colleagues to write this
review as part of our response to a request from the
Council of Science Editors (CSE) to participate in their
Global Theme Issue on Poverty and Human Develop-
ment (http://www.councilscienceeditors.org/global
themeissue.cfm). As described by CSE, as part of the
Global Theme Issue, “Science journals throughout the
world will simultaneously publish papers on this topic
of worldwide interest—to raise awareness, stimulate
interest, and stimulate research into poverty and hu-
man development. This is an international collabora-
tion with journals from developed and developing
countries.”
However, the purpose of our invitation went beyond
responding to the Global Theme Issue of CSE. Our pur-
pose was to highlight the importance of livestock in the
global effort to alleviate poverty and promote human
health, for those involved in livestock research, for
August 20, 2007.
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policymakers, and those who are the beneficiaries of
these efforts. We also wanted to provide a scholarly
analysis of the facts as well as some of the misconcep-
tions concerning the contribution of livestock to the
health and economic progress of developing countries.
In fact, as Dr. Randolph and colleagues observe in
their review, “Animal-source foods are particularly ap-
propriate for combating malnutrition and a range of
nutritional deficiencies,” and, “livestock clearly offer the
most efficient utilization of resources that would other-
wise go unexploited. . .,” and thereby contribute to eco-
nomic development as well. Thus, “livestock keeping”
has been, and will continue to be, integral to improving
the well-being of people in developing countries, both
from a health and nutrition perspective and from a
socioeconomic one. However, as pointed out by Ran-
dolph and co-authors, there is a critical need for objec-
tive, scientifically sound studies on the role of and meth-
ods to promote improved livestock production in devel-
oping countries.
We could think of nothing more appropriate than a
review on this topic for the Journal of Animal Science
as part of this global effort to alleviate the suffering of
millions of people. To help ensure that they have the
intended impact, this editorial and the review article
by Randolph and colleagues are being released as open
access publications. We offer our sincere thanks to Dr.
Randolph and colleagues for their thorough and bal-
anced review of this important topic and to the review-
ers and editors involved in bringing this paper to publi-
cation.
Mark A. Mirando
Symposia Editor, Journal of Animal Science
Lawrence P. Reynolds
Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Animal Science
doi:10.2527/jas.2007-85-11-2787