Agroecosystem health management and livestock
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The roles of livestock in agricultural economy, culture and ecology are complex and vary according to specific contexts around the world. Several authors, including those of the background report for this conference, have identified and discussed many of these roles, and it is not our intent to recount them (Steinfeld et al 1997). It is widely recognized in these discussions that livestock are not raised for their own sake, but to meet interacting, and sometimes conflicting, human nutritional, e conomic and environmental needs. For instance, as part of an IDRC-funded research project on human disease problems associated with intensive livestock slaughtering practices along the riverbanks in Kathmandu, it has become clear these cannot be seriously dealt with without also addressing issues of community empowerment, rural-urban migration, globalization of the economy, energy and water use for non-agriculturally-related activities, and changes in nutritional habits and culture. Having said this, it is also clear that there is a paucity of conceptual and methodological tools to do the inter- and transdisciplinary work necessary to address such complex interactions. Agroecosystem health represents a theoretically and practically coherent approach to research and management of the full range of issues - from human nutrition and health to economic adaptability and ecological integrity - which must be addressed if workable policies and management strategies incorporating livestock are to be developed. Drawing on a diverse body of systems and management literature, and building on experience related to veterinary herd health management and human population health and healthy communities, agroecosystem health pulls together research and management into a seamless process of sustainable learning and adaptation.