Chapter 7 - Ecosystem services from different livestock management systems

Abstract

This chapter deals with the basic question “How does livestock production systems benefit humans and the environment?” Livestock farming involves the rearing of animals for food products, nonfood products (leather, wool, and even organic fertilizer), and other human uses, such as draft power and social protection. Livestock are assets that have life hence the term and this normally applies to domesticated animals such as beef cattle, dairy cows, chickens, goats, pigs, horses, donkeys, mules, rabbits, insects, and sheep. The chapter will take the view that undomesticated animals such as wildlife which can be an asset in one way or the other are also livestock.