Livestock Farming: The Untold Story

The last is yet to be heard about how livestock farming is inherently dangerous to the ecosystem, especially  drinking water supplies in developing countries.

Indeed, livestock farming the world-over has in the recent times generated public discourse. This follows the discovery that livestock production poses palpable health hazards to the health of humans.

Before now, livestock farming was globally accepted as a good means of boosting economic development and food sufficiency among settlements in developing nations. This, to a great extent, spurred the governments and agencies of some developing countries to give regular assistance to livestock farmers, through the provision of incentives and credit facilities to enable them break-even as well as beef up their economic advancement.

However, disturbed by the way and manner livestock production is being practiced in developing nations, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), an affiliate of the United Nations (UN), has cautioned against the establishment of livestock farms in urban centres and in areas close to residential houses.

In one of its recent reports titled, “Livestock Policy Brief”, the UN agency observed with dismay that industrial livestock production in developing nations often causes “severe environmental damage”, especially when meat and dairy factories are crowded around cities or close to water resources.

Indeed, the report asked the governments and the various authorities in developing countries to create incentives for more environmentally friendly dairy and meat production practices, since meat and dairy products have become more widely available in many developing nations.

To halt the unguided livestock farming practices across developing countries, the authorities must evolve regulatory policies and taxes that could discourage the concentration of livestock farms close to residential houses in urban centres as well as cities.

Yes, governments and agencies in the developing countries, including Nigeria, must take seriously the FAO’s caution against livestock farming, in order to safeguard the health of their citizens.

Besides, there is need for authorities in the developing world to put livestock production in check because it is a known fact that major forms of pollution associated with manure management is usually found in intensive livestock production.

What’s more, livestock production in urban areas should also be discouraged because of what has been described as the ‘leaching’ of acid and disease-producing organisms into ground-water, which often threatens drinking water supplies in some developing nations”.

Although livestock production creates vast quantities of manure in developing world, it has also been discovered that the supply of nutrients from livestock farms, damages soil fertilizer. This is why experts are also calling for caution in application of livestock production manure on crops.

Again, another danger in livestock production in the developing world borders principally on the fact that fragile ecosystems such as wetlands, mangrove swamps and coral reels are destroyed.

Therefore, authorities in the deveoping country must now begin to beam their searchlights on livestock farmers in the rural areas. Why?  Because livestock farming is done in the most crude manner in the rural communities.

Indeed, it behoves the governments at all levels and other stakeholders to monitor the activities of livestock farmers, operating in the urban centres. That way, disease-producing organisms into groundwater, which is now threatening drinking water supplies will, in no mean way, be halted.

That said, it is imperative to enact laws that would reduce the establishment of livestock farms in urban centres in order to safeguard the health of the people and the ecosystems.