A growing desire for meat, particularly in the developing world, is going to shift consumption and demand patterns, says a leading livestock researcher.
Suzanne Bertrand, deputy director general for biosciences with the International Livestock Research Institute, predicts that most of the pork on North American supermarket shelves will eventually come from China.
Speaking at the recent 2014 Agricultural Bioscience International Conference in Saskatoon, Bertrand said expanding beef production in Africa, Asia and Latin America are other export factors.
Farmers in those parts of the world keep cattle in poorer health because they can sell the better quality ones to earn money to send their children to school.
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“Breeders are pulling their hair,” she said.
Many types of zoonotic diseases threaten livestock, especially non-indigenous cattle, she added.
In Africa, farmers annually lose 22 percent of their young cattle, 28 percent of their sheep and goats and 70 percent of poultry before they reach adulthood.
Vaccines and breeding groups must be created that are resistant to disease, not only to protect livestock production but also because these zoonotic diseases can kill humans.
“A good example people should keep in mind is the avian flu,” she said. “It is very difficult to control.”
Bertrand and her team have been gathering genotype data so they can determine the primary location of various cattle breeds and their susceptibility to disease.
Phenotype data remains a challenge to collect, but people can fill in the blanks by documenting how much milk is being collected, how many calves are born and how healthy they are.
Bertrand is working on isolating the genes that make certain animals resistant to diseases and transferring them to breed resistant cattle.
Women in Africa and Asia have a major role to play in data collection and animal health, Bertrand said.
“Some villages, if you have four litres of milk per day, you are very happy,” she said.
“If you tell women they can have 10 litres a day, the women will start thinking, ‘I can drink two litres and sell eight. If I sell eight, I will have enough money for school fees or that pretty dress or that school uniform.’ ”
Bertrand said this is one way her organization empowers women. And through this empowerment, women collect data about their cows, which can be used to establish the kind of breeding that needs to be done to produce a better herd.
“The goal is to produce a breeding herd with total immunities,” she said.
