Livestock Keepers

1053 Words3 Pages

Livestock keepers have one of the most important jobs in the world for providing dairy and other animal goods. Numerous studies have been conducted on the research of livestock keepers with disease prevention, technological improvements, and medicinal methods of treatment. The studies do lack an important question though, why rural regions, where nearly all livestock herds are located, lack veterinarians? Having veterinarians around can eliminate many of these problems that the studies result in, and prevent more health risks. This paper will examine different research articles, to propose additional research on bringing awareness for the lack of veterinarian access in rural regions. By analyzing and evaluating these articles, this will provide …show more content…

Livestock keepers maintain one of the most important jobs in the world, being the resource for meat and other animal products. Many though lack the knowledge on how to manage and treat their own animals especially without having veterinarians around. Conducting a study on examining how shepherds of small villages treat infected animals, the authors found only 4% knew how Cystic echinococcosis is spread (Merino, Westgard, Bayer, & García 2017). The deadly infection, caused by tapeworms is a disease often found in livestock animals that affects humans. Lacking the knowledge on an infectious disease that can spread to humans, creates a variety of problems and health risks that livestock keepers could not even be aware of. Furthermore with new human diseases emerging on a yearly basis, 66% trace back to animal origin (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations [FAO], 2014). Living in a low economic area, information on how to raise livestock is only passed through other livestock keepers rather than knowledgeable sources. Livestock keepers also only receive just 3% of global agricultural development funding (FAO, 2014). This contribution from funding is still regardless of the difficulties of living in poor and limited veterinarian access regions. In order to improve the way livestock keepers take care of their animals, the barrier of limited access must be …show more content…

Focusing on biosecurity in cattle, the authors of the study found that the death of cattle increases with other livestock being positive to other diseases(Wolff, Boqvist, Ståhl, Masembe, & Sternberg-Lewerin, 2017). In other words, diseases can be passed along despite being different species. This is important because livestock herds are made up of many different types of animals, from cows to chickens. Although the study misses the point on how livestock keepers raise their herd, the study is still important for providing insight on the relation to limited veterinarian

Open Document