Animal health and human wealth

There is a lot of talking in Brussels. The city of compromise is also the capital of conferences, and when you work here it is important to pick and choose the ones to go to. I am a sucker for sandwiches, free pens and badges with my name on but there is also the day job to be getting on with.

I try to attend conferences concerned with animal health, and this week has been no exception with one yesterday focussed on antimicrobial resistance. A pretty dry but very important topic, it looked at what can be done to cut down on resistance in human and animal medicine. If you're interested, take a look here. I also re-discovered some notes from a conference last year on the 'Economics of Animal Health' which you can see here.

From my notes from the conference last year, I scribbled that:

- In the EU, livestock represents 40% of the farm sector that employs 12m people.

- In Asia and sub-Sarahan Africa, 900m people rely on livestock for their livelihood. 

- Globally, the livestock sector and related industries employs 1.3bn people.

- The livestock sector is a $1.4 trillion global asset. 

You can easily see that the health of livestock and livestock in general has an impact on a hell of a lot of people in the world directly, and everyone else indirectly as we interact with the food system and the environment around us. What often strikes me at these type of gigs though, is the different and sometimes conflicting mindsets that policymakers and NGOs have on this topic.

In the developing world, livestock pulls people out of poverty. Too often in the developed world, some people see livestock as a problem to be dealt with. Why is the role of livestock in the developing world illustrated like this on the left below, but too often like this on the right in the developed world?

Cows in Africa as a development tool (see here) 

A sheep with BTV (see here)

Yes, I am speaking very generally here. 

However, imagine how positive it could be if it wasn't like that. Imagine if we focussed on livestock as a driver for development in Europe as well. Think of the jobs that could be created through a thriving and profitable livestock sector; where farmers have the money to be able to reinvest and grow their businesses, spend money in the local economy, develop new products and export them. Just think how positive that could be.

In the developing world, a farmer wanting to double his cow numbers would be applauded for striving to build a better business and a better life for his family and quite right too. I am not sure a farmer in Europe wanting to do exactly the same is viewed in quite the same light.