Tropical Dairy Farming is a manual designed for use by dairy production advisors working in tropical areas, especially in South-East Asia. It aims to increase the productivity of small holder dairy farmers in the humid tropics by improving the feeding management of their livestock. It shows how to provide dairy cows with cost-effective feeds that match small holder farming systems and discusses the major obstacles to improving feeding management in the humid tropics. The author shows the benefits and drawbacks of various feed components and the calculation of balanced diets based mainly on forages combined with some supplementary feeding. Diseases and problems associated with unbalanced diets are also covered, as well as important information on growing and conserving quality forages as silage. The book draws on examples from a variety of countries including Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, China, East Timor and the Philippines.

"The assessment builds on the work of the Livestock, Environment and Development (LEAD) Initiative"--Pref.

The objectives of this study are to assess the role of small ruminants (sheep and goats) in the food production systems of developing countries, examine their advantages and disadvantages, analyze the constraints limiting their further contribution to the welfare of small farm/low income rural producers, prescribe measures for overcoming these constraints, and make recommendations related to potential donor involvement in support of the development of sheep and goat production. Small ruminants are viewed as an integral, but not dominant component of complex agricultural systems. Particular emphasis is placed on sheep and goats in mixed herds grazing dry rangelands and in small mixed farm systems in medium to high rainfall areas. An analysis of major constraints -- ecological, biological, policy, and socio-economic -- leads to recommendations on the need for a balanced production system approach for research, training and development programs, and for a combination of support activities such as herd health programs, and formulation of favorable credit, marketing and pricing policies for small ruminants and their products.

Each of these popular handbooks contains comprehensive information on the nutritional needs of domestic animals and includes extensive tabular data. All are paperback and 8 1/2 x 11. Some books come with diskettes or Cds that allow users to predict nutrient requirements of specific animals under various conditions and at various life stages.

Informed livestock sector policy development and priority setting is heavily dependent on a good understanding of livestock production systems. In a collaborative effort between the Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Livestock Research Institute, stock has been taken of where we have come from in agricultural systems classification and mapping; the current state of the art; and the directions in which research and data collection efforts need to take in the future. The book also addresses issues relating to the intensity and scale of production, moving from what is done to how it is done. The intensification of production is an area of particular importance, for it is in the intensive systems that changes are occurring most rapidly and where most information is needed on the implications that intensification of production may have for livelihoods, poverty alleviation, animal diseases, public health and environmental outcomes. A series of case studies is provided, linking livestock production systems to rural livelihoods and poverty and examples of the application of livestock production system maps are drawn from livestock production, now and in the future; livestock's impact on the global environment; animal and public health; and livestock and livelihoods. This book provides a formal reference to Version 5 of the global livestock production systems map, and to revised estimates of the numbers of rural poor livestock keepers, by country and livestock production system.