The Livestock Revolution: from Traditionalism to Industrialization

Abstract

The spectacular growth rates of the global livestock sector in the last two decades have formed an agrarian revolution. Demographic changes, rapid urbanization and fast economic growth in emerging economies are the factors that have driven this revolution. In this process the livestock sector has undergone a transformation of its productive structure, from extensive traditional systems to intensive industrial systems. This livestock revolution, however, confronts a number of global challenges and opportunities, which have only recently drawn attention to the need to develop an institutional framework that is coherent with changes and a series of policies that make it possible to regulate the great challenges involved in the new environment of the livestock sector.