Awareness of agricultural climate impacts is growing. In the European Union (EU), the agricultural sector is responsible for significant greenhouse gas emissions while continuing to receive considerable EU budgetary support. A large share of agricultural emissions is linked to livestock husbandry, a sector the direct and indirect climate impacts of which the EU's ‘green’ agricultural policies have historically ignored. This blind spot extends to the sizeable global deforestation footprint from EU livestock feed imports that remains unaddressed, despite the EU's aspired status as a global climate leader and major global agricultural market player. This article benchmarks the evolution of EU agri-climate legal and policy developments, using livestock emissions as a case study to highlight the importance of learning from the successes and failures of the EU experience, to realize future attempts to tackle global agricultural emissions.

Climate change stands as the paramount challenge confronting humanity in the contemporary era. Attempting to address the problem, the main sectors responsible for it have been subject to domestic or international policies and laws aimed at reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, except one: livestock. Given that animal-sourced food production contributes a large portion of GHG emissions, this Article aims to analyze the impacts that the exclusion of the livestock sector, in efforts to tackle climate change, would have on compliance with international treaties on the subject, especially the Paris Agreement. One conclusion reveals that state parties, by ignoring the sector, will violate several articles of the Agreement, which will likely lead to the failure of its main purpose of holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C.

Epigenetic mechanisms, such as DNA methylation, histone modifications and non-coding RNA molecules, play a critical role in gene expression and regulation in livestock species, influencing development, reproduction and disease resistance. DNA methylation patterns silence gene expression by blocking transcription factor binding, while histone modifications alter chromatin structure and affect DNA accessibility. Livestock-specific histone modifications contribute to gene expression and genome stability. Non-coding RNAs, including miRNAs, piRNAs, siRNAs, snoRNAs, lncRNAs and circRNAs, regulate gene expression post-transcriptionally. Transgenerational epigenetic inheritance occurs in livestock, with environmental factors impacting epigenetic modifications and phenotypic traits across generations. Epigenetic regulation revealed significant effect on gene expression profiling that can be exploited for various targeted traits like muscle hypertrophy, puberty onset, growth, metabolism, disease resistance and milk production in livestock and poultry breeds. Epigenetic regulation of imprinted genes affects cattle growth and metabolism while epigenetic modifications play a role in disease resistance and mastitis in dairy cattle, as well as milk protein gene regulation during lactation. Nutri-epigenomics research also reveals the influence of maternal nutrition on offspring’s epigenetic regulation of metabolic homeostasis in cattle, sheep, goat and poultry. Integrating cyto-genomics approaches enhances understanding of epigenetic mechanisms in livestock breeding, providing insights into chromosomal structure, rearrangements and their impact on gene regulation and phenotypic traits. This review presents potential research areas to enhance production potential and deepen our understanding of epigenetic changes in livestock, offering opportunities for genetic improvement, reproductive management, disease control and milk production in diverse livestock species.

The objective of this study was to identify factors more commonly observed on farms with poor livestock welfare compared to farms with good welfare. Potentially, these factors may be used to develop an animal welfare risk assessment tool (AWRAT) that could be used to identify livestock at risk of poor welfare. Identifying livestock at risk of poor welfare would facilitate early intervention and improve strategies to promptly resolve welfare issues. This study focuses on cattle, sheep and goats in non-dairy extensive farming systems in Australia. To assist with identifying potential risk factors, a survey was developed presenting 99 factors about the farm, farmers, animals and various aspects of management. Based on their experience, key stakeholders, including veterinarians, stock agents, consultants, extension and animal welfare officers were asked to consider a farm where the welfare of the livestock was either high or low and rate the likelihood of observing these factors. Of the 141 responses, 65% were for farms with low welfare. Only 6% of factors had ratings that were not significantly different between high and low welfare surveys, and these were not considered further. Factors from poor welfare surveys with median ratings in the lowest 25% were considered potential risks (n = 49). Considering correlation, ease of verification and the different livestock farming systems in Australia, 18 risk factors relating to farm infrastructure, nutrition, treatment and husbandry were selected. The AWRAT requires validation in future studies.

China's cattle trade before 1949 is effectively invisible to historians. With no geographic center, few dominant firms, and little government oversight, cattle trade left behind no clear archive of sources, leaving scholars to the mercy of conjecture and episodic evidence. Combining insights from business and social history, we focused our attention on trade intermediation as the key to understanding the operations of a diffuse trade system. In the absence of a top–down archive, we composited hundreds of local sources on intermediation in cattle trade and remotely interviewed 80 former brokers. These sources revealed large numbers of individuated trade routes, which we break into three types: persistent supply, specialized demand, and resource circulation. Each type of trade called for distinct forms of intermediation with relatively little overlap between specialized networks. This recreation of China's cattle trade reveals a sophisticated market for animal labor that calls into question the direct causal link between imperialist resource extraction and rural immiseration, and suggests the utility of applying tools and perspectives of social history to other sorts of decentered commercial systems.

We examine how agricultural subsidies may induce deforestation and interact with conservation programs by analyzing two large-scale national programs in Mexico that have existed simultaneously for more than a decade: an agricultural subsidy for livestock (PROGAN) and a program of payments for ecosystem services (PES). Looking across the entire Mexican landscape, we exploit the surprises in the timing of enrollment in PROGAN's waves, fluctuations in program payments, and the change in the value of the subsidy induced by inflation and currency fluctuations to identify the impacts of the livestock subsidy on environmental outcomes. We find that PROGAN increased municipal deforestation by 7 per cent. The deforestation effects of PROGAN were smaller in municipalities with higher concentrations of PES recipients. We suggest that livestock subsidies could be better targeted to places with low deforestation risk and high livestock productivity to maximize food production and minimize negative externalities caused by deforestation.

Cystic echinococcosis (CE) remains a significant challenge in Uganda with precise status largely undocumented in most communities. To determine CE prevalence, post-mortem examination was done on 14 937 livestock (5873 goats, 1377 sheep, 3726 zebu cattle and 3054 Ankole cattle) slaughtered in abattoirs in the districts of Moroto in Karamoja region, Kumi in Teso region and Nakasongola and Luwero in Buganda region. The overall CE prevalence was 21.9% in sheep, 15.2% in zebu cattle, 5.5% in goats and 2.1% in Ankole cattle. Moroto district had a higher prevalence of CE than other districts with 31.3% in zebu cattle, sheep 28%, goats 29.1% and (0%) in Ankole cattle. On organ locations, the lungs were the most affected in all livestock in all the study areas. Considering cyst fertility, 33.9, 1.7 and 6.4% of Ankole cattle, sheep and zebu cattle respectively had fertile cysts in the liver while 4.5% of goats and 4% Ankole cattle had fertile cysts in the lungs. In conclusion, CE is widespread and occurs among cattle, sheep and goats in pastoral and agro-pastoral areas in Uganda. Therefore, there is an urgent need to create awareness among the communities on role of livestock in CE epidemiology and transmission.

Records of the Nubian Bustard Nubotis nuba range across the drier northern component of the Sahel zone in Africa from Mauritania through Mali, Niger, and Chad to Sudan. Reports of significant hunting pressure have caused it to be treated as IUCN “Near Threatened” for almost 40 years, but information relating to distribution and population trends remains scattered, anecdotal, and unevaluated. All accessible evidence bearing on its conservation is therefore assembled and reviewed here. The lack of records from Mauritania since 1984, Mali since 1974, and Sudan since 1988 suggests that populations there may now be very small and perhaps entirely extinguished. Records from Niger and Chad remain many, thanks largely to the assiduous reporting of observations on the West African Bird DataBase (WABDaB) by researchers involved in ungulate conservation. The national nature reserves of Aïr and Ténéré (RNNAT) and Termit and Tin-Toumma (RNNTT) in Niger and the Ouadi Rimé–Ouadi Achim Faunal Reserve (RFOROA) in Chad emerge as vital to the long-term survival of the Nubian Bustard, given the accumulating evidence in both countries of (1) widespread habitat degradation and conversion, as human populations and their livestock expand in numbers and range in the Sahel, and (2) intensifying persecution, as highly mobile and well-armed local poachers plus Gulf state hunters gain increasing vehicular access to the remotest regions, depleting all huntable wildlife (a Sahel-wide bird study, 2011–2019, encountered just 16 bustards of four species – none Nubian – in 487 observation days). Populations of Nubian Bustard must now be greatly fragmented and depleted, with many entirely lost, so targeted programmes to minimise disturbance, persecution, and damage to habitat in the three key reserves (including the exclusion of powerlines) are urgently needed. Ultimately however the survival of this and other endemic Sahelian species can only be secured via a huge programme of ecologically and economically sustainable management practices.

This paper presents results of a search and analysis of research projects on animal welfare registered in the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) database in the period 1996–2019, with the aim of gaining a better understanding of developments in animal welfare science in China. The title-abstract search of publications in this database resulted in over 260 articles that could be linked to 200 research projects with an animal welfare component. These projects were analysed for: (a) involved academic disciplines; (b) studied animal species; (c) contexts of animal use; (d) concepts of animal welfare; and (e) attention to ethical dimensions of animal welfare. The analysis shows an increased attention to animal welfare science, with a particular focus on farm and laboratory animals. We observed an increase in the number of studies and of animal species studied. The majority of research projects start in or include a view of animal welfare that is close to Fraser’s ‘biological function’ view. We conclude that the increased attention to animal welfare in science reflects recent developments in China in terms of public concern about animal use, academic debate about the importance of animal welfare, and animal-related political and economic developments linked to China’s ambitions to be a global player in science and food production. For the further development of animal welfare science in China stable funding and more interdisciplinary collaboration are necessary to study and publish on fundamental aspects of animal welfare, on issues not directly related to applied problems, and on the ethical dimensions of animal welfare.

Unproven economic returns at the farm level are a major barrier to large-scale adoption of cover crops. The objective of this study was to evaluate the short-run private net returns to producers implementing a cereal rye (Secale cereale L.) cover crop preceding the no-till corn (Zea mays L.) phase of a US Midwest corn–soybean (Glycine max [L.] Merr.) rotation in an integrated crop and cow–calf operation. We used experimental agronomic data from six location-years in Iowa to estimate private net returns to cereal rye across alternative scenarios in a partial budget framework. Net returns in the absence of grazing averaged −$123.74 ha−1 and were negative for 82.2% of the treatments, while net returns under partial grazing averaged −$15.24 ha−1 and were negative for 54.8% of the treatments. Early-broadcast cereal rye produced higher biomass and larger net cost savings in the livestock enterprise than late-drilled cereal rye, but it also resulted in higher corn yield penalties. In the no-grazing scenario, net losses for early-broadcast cereal rye were $165.97 ha−1 larger, on average, than for late-drilled cereal rye. Our findings should raise awareness about the low probability of obtaining positive annual private net returns to cereal rye in Iowa in the absence of sizable targeted financial incentives, and inform the policy discussion on the cost-effectiveness of government-sponsored conservation programs.

Piroplasms, which include the agents of cattle fever and human and dog babesiosis, are a diverse group of blood parasites of significant veterinary and medical importance. The invasive Asian longhorned tick, Haemaphysalis longicornis, is a known vector of piroplasms in its native range in East Asia and invasive range in Australasia. In the USA, H. longicornis has been associated with Theileria orientalis Ikeda outbreaks that caused cattle mortality. To survey invasive populations of H. longicornis for a broad range of piroplasms, 667 questing H. longicornis collected in 2021 from 3 sites in New Jersey, USA, were tested with generalist piroplasm primers targeting the 18S small subunit rRNA (395–515 bp, depending on species) and the cytochrome b oxidase loci (1009 bp). Sequences matching Theileria cervi type F (1 adult, 5 nymphs), an unidentified Theileria species (in 1 nymph), an undescribed Babesia sensu stricto (‘true’ Babesia, 2 adults, 2 nymphs), a Babesia sp. Coco (also a ‘true Babesia’, 1 adult, 1 nymph), as well as Babesia microti S837 (1 adult, 4 nymphs) were recovered. Babesia microti S837 is closely related to the human pathogen B. microti US-type. Additionally, a 132 bp sequence matching the cytochrome b locus of deer, Odocoileus virginanus, was obtained from 2 partially engorged H. longicornis. The diverse assemblage of piroplasms now associated with H. longicornis in the USA spans 3 clades in the piroplasm phylogeny and raises concerns of transmission amplification of veterinary pathogens as well as spillover of pathogens from wildlife to humans.

Animal welfare encompasses all aspects of an animal's life and the interactions between animals. Consequently, welfare must be measured across a variety of factors that consider aspects such as health, behaviour and mental state. Decisions regarding housing and grazing are central to farm management. In this study, two beef cattle systems and their herds were compared from weaning to slaughter across numerous indicators. One herd (‘HH’) were continuously housed, the other (‘HG’) were housed only during winter. Inspections of animals were conducted to assess body condition, cleanliness, diarrhoea, hairlessness, nasal discharge and ocular discharge. Hair and nasal mucus samples were taken for quantification of cortisol and serotonin. Qualitative behaviour assessments (QBA) were also conducted and performance monitored. Physical health indicators were similar between herds with the exception of nasal discharge which was more prevalent in HH (P < 0.001). During winter, QBA yielded differences between herds over PC1 (arousal) (P = 0.032), but not PC2 (mood) (P = 0.139). Through summer, there was a strong difference across both PC1 (P < 0.001) and PC2 (P = 0.002), with HG exhibiting more positive behaviour. A difference was found in hair cortisol levels, with the greatest concentrations observed in HG (P = 0.011), however such a pattern was not seen for nasal mucus cortisol or for serotonin. Overall, providing summer grazing (HG) appeared to afford welfare benefits to the cattle as shown with more positive QBA assessments, but also slightly better health indicators, notwithstanding the higher levels of cortisol in that group.

There are no scientific data available on the occurrence of the Echinococcus granulosus sensu lato (s.l.) cluster in definitive hosts (domestic dogs), intermediate hosts (domestic livestock) nor humans in Cape Verde. In this pilot study, environmental dog fecal samples (n = 369) were collected around food markets, official slaughterhouses, as well as home and small business slaughter spots in 8 of the 9 inhabited islands from the Cape Verde archipelago, between June 2021 and March 2022. Additionally, during the same period, 40 cysts and tissue lesions were opportunistically collected from 5 islands, from locally slaughtered cattle (n = 7), goats (n = 2), sheep (n = 1) and pigs (n = 26). Genetic characterization by a multiplex polymerase chain reaction assay targeting the 12S rRNA gene confirmed the presence of E. granulosus s.l. in fecal and tissue material. In total, 17 cyst samples from Santiago (n = 9), Sal (n = 7) and São Vicente (n = 1) and 8 G6/G7-positive dog fecal samples from Santiago (n = 4) and Sal (n = 4) were identified as E. granulosus s.l. G7 by sequence analysis (nad2, nad5 and nad1 genes). This study discloses the transmission of E. granulosus s.l. G7, in pig, cattle and dog in Cape Verde.

Gastrointestinal nematodes threaten the productivity of grazing livestock and anthelmintic resistance has emerged globally. It is broadly understood that wild ruminants living in sympatry with livestock act as a positive source of refugia for anthelmintic-susceptible nematodes. However, they might also act as reservoirs of anthelmintic-resistant nematodes, contributing to the spread of anthelmintic resistance at a regional scale. Here, we sampled managed sheep and cattle together with feral goats within the same property in New South Wales, Australia. Internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS-2) nemabiome metabarcoding identified 12 gastrointestinal nematodes (Cooperia oncophora, Cooperia punctata, Haemonchus contortus, Haemonchus placei, Nematodirus spathiger, Ostertagia ostertagi, Teladorsagia circumcincta, Oesophagostomum radiatum, Oesophagostomum venulosum, Trichostrongylus axei, Trichostrongylus colubriformis and Trichostrongylus rugatus). Isotype-1 β-tubulin metabarcoding targeting benzimidazole resistance polymorphisms identified 6 of these nematode species (C. oncophora, C. punctata, H. contortus, H. placei, O. ostertagi and T. circumcincta), with the remaining 3 genera unable to be identified to the species level (Nematodirus, Oesophagostomum, Trichostrongylus). Both ITS-2 and β-tubulin metabarcoding showed the presence of a cryptic species of T. circumcincta, known from domestic goats in France. Of the gastrointestinal nematodes detected via β-tubulin metabarcoding, H. contortus, T. circumcincta, Nematodirus and Trichostrongylus exhibited the presence of at least one resistance genotype. We found that generalist gastrointestinal nematodes in untreated feral goats had a similarly high frequency of the benzimidazole-resistant F200Y polymorphism as those nematodes in sheep and cattle. This suggests cross-transmission and maintenance of the resistant genotype within the wild ruminant population, affirming that wild ruminants should be considered potential reservoirs of anthelmintic resistance.

The presence of domestic animals is a key feature of the Neolithic. Their earliest presence in archaeological contexts across the European continent is often interpreted as reflecting farming practices. However, domestic animals often escape, survive, and become feral. Using the comparative example of colonial North America, this article's aim is to illustrate what happens when livestock are introduced to a new, continental temperate environment. Taking a dual historical and archaeological perspective, the author reiterates and elaborates on the suggestion that feral animals were almost certainly a feature of the European Neolithization process.

Studies on the transport of deer (Cervidae), in the UK, were published > 15 years ago. A more recent study of deer transport is required to allow for assessments and improvements to the transport of farmed deer. Sixteen deer farmers participated in a survey describing their management practices related to transport. Their responses showed that most vehicles used to transport deer were designed for other livestock. Participating farmers estimated journey times to slaughter as 1–8 h, with an arithmetic mean of 4.8 (± 2.38) h. Specific concerns raised by the respondents, relating to the transport of deer, included a need for deer-specific vehicles, stop-off areas for long journeys, market locations and haulier experience. Furthermore, data were collected from two abattoirs between July 2019 and June 2020 comprising journey times, slaughter times, bruising, location of origin, vehicle type and the number of animals. In total, 4,922 deer were transported across 133 journeys (from farm to abattoir) from 61 farms. Median and range for journey length were 3.2 (0.4–9.8) h and 154.2 (7.1–462.2) km, whereas group size and time spent in the lairage were 24 (1–121) and 17.8 (10.2–68.9) h, respectively. Group size was found to be significantly associated with both the presence of bruising in a group and the amount of bruising per deer. This study provides a much-needed update on the transport of farmed deer in the UK and highlights key areas for future research including the welfare impact of transport in larger groups and for longer durations.

The inclusion of Russell and Burch's Three Rs (replacement, reduction and refinement) in guidelines, codes of practice and law reflects their current position as the guiding principles of ethical assessment of research involving animals. This article explores some activities within the contemporary livestock industry that constitute the experimental use of animals on a local and global scale. The elucidation of correlated responses during trait selection in genetic improvement programs provides one example of experiments occurring within the commercial livestock industry. This experimentation is largely conducted without scrutiny of its conformity to the Three Rs. Experimentation to improve the management of the livestock industry is consistent with the principle of refinement, and experimentation to increase productivity per unit of livestock is consistent with the principle of reduction; however, experimentation to increase total livestock production conflicts with the principle of replacement. Some approaches regarding the appraisal of the ethics of research involving animals, which could avoid arbitrary boundaries associated with the location or purpose of experimentation, are considered together with the relationship between experimentation and other anthropogenic impacts on animals.

There are increasing local and international pressures for farm animal welfare monitoring schemes. Housing of farm animals is a contentious issue for many, although the impact of the housing system may be overestimated by some. In contrast, the topic of stockmanship has received relatively little attention, even though research has shown that animal carers or stockpeople have a major impact on the welfare of their livestock. While welfare monitoring schemes are likely to improve animal welfare, the impact of such schemes will only be realised by recognising the limitations of stockpeople, monitoring ‘stockmanship’ and providing specific stockperson training to target key aspects of stockmanship. Appropriate strategies to recruit and train stock-people in the livestock industries are integral to safeguarding the welfare of livestock. Monitoring the key job-related characteristics of the stockperson, attitudes to animals and to working with these animals, empathy, work motivation and technical knowledge and skills, provides the opportunity to detect deficits in stockmanship and the necessity for further targeted training. Due to the strong relationships between stockperson attitudes and behaviours and animal fear responses, as well as the relationships between attitudes and other job-related characteristics, we believe attitudes, together with empathy, work motivation and technical knowledge and skills, should be the principal focus of measuring stockmanship in on-farm welfare monitoring schemes.