Word: livestock
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...match those of world cities such as Hong Kong or New York City, and a bleary-eyed community of foreign laborers hammers away at building sites daily. That's quite a change. Not long ago, Malé was a sleepy fishing island with sand-packed streets and pens for livestock, only reachable after a perilous weeklong journey by ship from Colombo. Now, most people there sport flashy cell phones; at night, a few Porsches and Maseratis rev their engines impotently around the 500-acre (2 sq km) capital's congested roads...
...around the world, veterinary health care is the poor cousin to human health, chronically underfunded. But if we are serious about heading off new infections, we need to increase available resources and make sure that veterinarians are looking out for new diseases in livestock and wildlife in the same way that the WHO's global flu network is constantly monitoring the world's human population for new influenza strains. As we've seen with H1N1, once a new flu has emerged and begun spreading among people, it's likely too late to contain. "What we need to do is upstream...
...first surfaced, health officials have focused mostly on Asia as the breeding ground for the world's next pandemic flu virus. But Daszak points out that Mexico, where people, pigs and poultry can exist in close proximity, is an overlooked hot spot for new viruses. Given the booming global livestock trade - more than 1.5 billion live animals have been shipped to the U.S. from all over the world in the past decade - it's possible that the A/H1N1 virus originated in an Asian bird that was exported to Mexico, where it may have reassorted in a pig before infecting people...
Already the world's largest producer of milk, India will have to yank up production from the current 100 million metric tons to 180 million metric tons by 2021-22 to keep pace with growing population and expanding disposable incomes. Livestock such as cows, buffalo, goats, sheep, horses and mules are indispensable to India's rural economy - whether the animals are yoked to plow land, raised for milk and manure or harnessed to pull carts to move goods and people. The Ministry of Agriculture estimates that livestock contribute 5.3% to total GDP, up from 4.8% during 1980-81. But, says...
...starters, most Indian livestock is underfed and undernourished, unlike its robust counterparts in richer countries. The typical Indian farmer is unable to buy expensive dietary supplements even for livestock of productive age, and dry milch cattle and older farm animals are invariably turned out to fend for themselves. Poor-quality feed equals poor animal health as well as higher methane production. Also, even when Western firms are willing to share technology or when Western products are available, these options are often unaffordable for the majority in India. For instance, Monensin, an antibiotic whose slow-release formula reduces methane emission...