Maintaining animal health isn’t only an essential practice for livestock farming, though any farmer or rancher will agree that’s true. It’s also a way to lower the methane intensity of the meat and dairy produced by livestock and improve health and livelihoods for people, which is particularly important for smallholder farmers in low-income countries.
Livestock farming contributes more than one-third of human-caused methane emissions, a powerful super-pollutant responsible for much of the additional warming and extreme weather the world is facing. At the same time, animal agriculture both provides critical nutrition and supports the livelihoods of millions of families, benefits that are now at risk due to heatwaves, droughts and other climate impacts.
Enhancing animal health, for example through improved disease management, is a way to address livestock methane emissions, while supporting rural livelihoods and nutritional needs. The scientific evidence for these links is growing.
Farmers have long prioritized the health of their animals, and with additional investments and support from the public and private sectors, they can take the health of their animals even further.
Why animal health matters
In addition to causing suffering to animals, livestock diseases also cause significant production losses due to decreased productivity, decreased reproductive success, and even deaths of animals.
These production losses are economically devastating to smallholder farmers and also have an invisible climate cost: if an animal becomes sick and dies, it still produces methane emissions without any of the benefits to nutrition and livelihoods.
In low and middle-income countries, optimizing productivity by investing in animal health is key to lowering the amount of methane emitted to produce a given amount of milk or meat, also known as methane intensity.
These investments will also improve human health and livelihoods. They help to close nutrition gaps in areas where malnutrition is common (since healthier animals are more productive). They reduce zoonotic diseases (diseases that can spread from animals to humans), lowering the risk that humans will become ill. And they provide a more secure income from the sale of more milk and meat, allowing smallholder farmers to increase their quality of life.
New research highlights potential
While farmers prioritize animal health and well-being to the best of their ability, opportunities remain to continue to improve animal health. The world’s most vulnerable farmers still face many barriers to the adoption and implementation of best management and veterinary care practices.
In Africa, the demand for animal protein from cattle is expected to grow dramatically in the next few decades. Across the continent, population growth, increased income and urbanization will likely triple meat consumption and double milk consumption by 2050. The current system is not built for success to support this due to production issues, for example calf mortality reaching about 20% annually.
Newly published research based on data from Tanzania and Kenya highlights the potential for animal health interventions to help solve these interconnected challenges. It shows that low-cost interventions can address climate change, food and nutritional security, and sustainable economic development.
With this new research, it’s become clear that we also need a roadmap to achieve animal health goals and understand how specific animal health interventions affect methane emissions.
We have many technical solutions for improving animal health, including vaccination programs against infectious diseases, biosecurity measures, reproductive management and calf health support. But a roadmap for aligning animal health, climate and rural development investments will help ensure animal health resources reach those who need them and are ready to use them: the farmers seeking to improve the lives of their animals and their communities.
To learn more about animal health’s relationship with human health and climate change and how EDF is working on this issue, visit www.edf.org/animalhealth.