Livestock sectors in world agriculture

In the world agriculture, as well as the cultivation of grain crops, livestock raising is almost everywhere widespread. At the same time, meadows and pastures occupy three times more land in the structure of lands than arable land. The main part of livestock production is given by countries located in the temperate climate belt. First of all, the geography of world livestock production is determined by the conditions for the accommodation of livestock. At the same time, the leading role in the development is played by three livestock sectors: cattle breeding, as well as pig and sheep breeding.

There is a big difference in the development of livestock in developing and developed countries. In developed countries , livestock production prevails over agriculture and an intensive type of farming is used for it. In most developing countries, livestock production is a secondary branch and is conducted extensively. In developed countries, improving the forage base, industrialization and breeding in livestock breeding have led to enormous success in its intensity. As a result, livestock farming confronts them with the same problems as farming - there is overproduction of products. Therefore, the governments of such states are forced to pursue a policy of restraining and reducing production.

Cattle (there are about 1.3 billion heads in the world) gives almost all milk production and more than a third of meat production. The most characteristic is the dairy direction for the densely populated areas of North America and Europe, which are located in the forest and steppe zones of the temperate zone. Meat and milk cattle breeding is widespread not only in these zones where there is intensive agriculture, but also in more arid regions, where there is much less manpower. Meat cattle breeding has received its primary development in the arid regions of the subtropical and temperate zones. Such reasons for the spread of individual livestock sectors are determined not only by climatic conditions, but also by the availability of fodder for livestock.

The most dynamically developing branches of animal husbandry in modern times is pig production. In the world now there are more than 800 million pigs. Success in the development of pig production has led to the fact that the cost of pork is less than the cost of beef. It is important that pig production is possible not only in areas where livestock grazing is carried out, but is often carried out year-round in stalls using imported feed and food industry waste. However, the pasture content of pigs with sufficient land areas is poorly distributed due to the fact that it is much more profitable to develop such livestock sectors as cattle breeding and sheep breeding in these areas. In addition, pig production is practically absent in Muslim countries for religious reasons.

Pig breeding is usually located closer to densely populated areas and to areas where potato growing and other branches for growing fodder products are intensively developing. Almost half of the total number of pigs in the world falls on the countries of Asia, primarily China. Other livestock sectors, in particular sheep breeding, also prevail in areas where there are extensive pastures. In regions with a more arid climate, as well as semi-desert and steppe pastures, fine-fleeced sheep breeding is more often conducted. In those areas where the softer climate and they are better provided with moisture, meat-sheep breeding predominates. The largest place in the world for the spread of sheep breeding is the semi-desert and steppe regions of Australia.