Field to fork: safeguarding livestock health
Veterinary research is spearheading a new generation of methods to protect livestock from disease.
15 November 2011
About 17Bn chickens, almost 10Bn pigs, and nearly 2Bn each of cattle and sheep were produced as livestock worldwide in 2009. By 2050, demand for livestock is projected to double with the added strain of increasing meat production on resources such as land, water, crops and energy, so it’s vital to maximise the ‘output for input’, as Professor Duncan Maskell, Head of the University of Cambridge’s Department of Veterinary Medicine, explains. “How you should apportion crops between food for animals and food and fuel for humans is a complex question, so it’s crucial to ensure that resource input counts in terms of output of meat, and one of the main moderators of this relationship is animal welfare, especially in terms of infectious disease.”
Viral epidemics can sweep through livestock, and endemic diseases such as respiratory infections can affect the rate at which animals grow. A further risk to food security is posed by bacterial infections of livestock that contaminate meat and cause food poisoning.
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Research funded by the Biological and Biotechnology Research Council (BBSRC) is tackling disease on all of these fronts in what Professor Maskell has described as “a perfect marriage between fundamental biological research and applied clinical outcomes.”
Continue to read this article on the University of Cambridge Research website.
