2026-06-27http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/228612Reducing lost productivity requires informed decisions by livestock owners and the delivery of appropriate, cost-effective, health and production services. Herd Health and Production Programmes (HHPPs) have been developed for livestock systems with the intention of providing a framework for making sound decisions, implementing actions and measuring impact. In the large-scale and more intensive production systems found in the developed world, HHPPs have been successful and self-sustai ning. Although HHPPs have also been designed for use in the small-scale farming systems typical of developing countries, their application has had only mixed success. Why is this so ? There are of course many technical difficulties in applying HHPPs in a developing-country environment: small herd sizes require special data analysis techniques; lower levels of literacy and numeracy demand different data collection techniques; production targets for low-input/low-output systems are oft en hard to define; and farming systems are usually complex and reflect a myriad of agricultural, economic, cultural and food security considerations.application/pdfFAODocument