Selection of (changes in) livestock management patterns related to forests

Abstract

An adequate supply of livestock fodder is crucial to the livelihoods of millions of people across the developing world. Livestock producers meet their fodder requirements through a combination of crop residues and grazing on common lands, private lands, forests, fallow agricultural lands and harvested agricultural lands. Availability and access to quality fodder resources and water, however, is emerging as an important constraint in livestock production. Increasing fodder shortages and water shortages are recurring phenomena, not only in arid and rain-fed regions, but also in irrigated areas and regions receiving higher rainfall. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.