Livestock play an important but variable role in both rural and urban societies. Animals can use products that are left over by humans, such as kitchen wastes, hotel leftovers, grass from roadsides and empty plots, residues from agro-industry and crop residues, while giving important products in return, such as meat, eggs, milk and fibres, and providing a source of income.
Goats, sheep, cows, horses, camels, chickens, buffaloes, pigeons and many other types of livestock can be found in many urban areas. Each has its own specific advantages and disadvantages. Smaller livestock, for example, are particularly adaptable to backyard conditions, they require little start-up capital, it is easy to sell them and they tend to reproduce quickly.
The many benefits of urban livestock are counter balanced by a series of problems. Many of them have neither simple nor fixed solutions because each solution brings its own potential problems. Problems and solutions depend on the perception of the stakeholders and the nature of the system involved. Participatory approaches are likely to be most successful. These take into account the perceptions of the different stakeholders at several levels of the system in order to develop acceptable solutions (coping strategies). For example, not only does the local livestock keeper have to agree with the solution, but so also do the administrators (and legal system). If the product is to be sold to provide an income, there also needs to be a market for the product and appropriate technology for processing it. |
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