On January 5, 2022, during the second part of Drylands Dialogue hosted by CBCGDF, Sara Platto, an expert of BASE and an associate professor of Jianghan University voiced her opinions. As a researcher in the field of animal behavior and welfare, she talked about the advantage of instable environment used by animal husbandry for protection food security.
Here, the International Cooperation Department of CBCGDF would like to share her speech with our passionate readers:
Covering 41% of the total land on earth, the Drylands have been sustaining 40% of the total population around the world, about 2 billion people. Moreover, all hot and dry areas contain one third biodiversity regions in this world.
Animal husbandry refers to massive pasture for livestock production. Currently, the whole system of pasture has covered around 25% surface area of earth.
Although pasture community has so much physical occupation, it has is endangered at present:
Challenge from the environment: a great proportion of the Drylands has degenerated continuously, incorrect policy on the transformation from pasture into farming and cultivation would further harm the original landscape.
Reachability to market: incessantly produced commodities required by the market should be guaranteed if we want to reduce destitution in pastoral regions. Through incorporating as many advantages of the free market as possible, local family working on herd management will be increasingly motivated.
On the other hand, benefits of animal husbandry are also well-accepted from multiple aspects:
Pasture and biodiversity: from the perspective of heredity, herdsmen would like to choose local pastoral species and crops that are able to fight diseases, extreme climates, and so on.
Pasture and Ecological services: in those water-deficient areas, herdsmen rely on water circulation system to provide favorable environment for live stocks’ daily living. What’s more, domestic animals can also play the natural and ecological role in the nature, such as carrying seeds into distant areas, thus enriching the land more widely.
(Words above have not yet been validated by the speaker and should be merely used for basic reference.)
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Original Chinese article:
Translator/Kim
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