Abstract
To meet the food demands of the ever-increasing world population, man's only major future land bank is the arid lands. However, their exploitation has been limited and constitutes a major challenge to many scientific disciplines. Under the present conditions of hunger and/or malnutrition, a large-scale expansion in food production is not to be expected. Hence, it is imperative that in any development programme for arid lands, malnutrition, in general, and a deficiency of animal proteins, in particular, should be considered. Major advancements have been made, but much remains to be learned and implemented. Improvement of native farm animals should be the first step in increasing the availability of animal proteins. This may be achieved by an educational programme to enhance management, housing, food intake, etc. Then a breeding programme selecting for high productivity can be pursued. After eliciting the maximum return from the present livestock, attention should be directed to domesticating wild ungulates and/or introducing highly productive temperature-zone breeds for upgrading the local animals. Additionally, new potential and unconventional sources of animal proteins must be explored. Aquaculture, in particular, has the potential of producing large quantities of lowercost protein-rich food. Available evidence in arid regions of the developed countries, i.e. USA and Australia, promises favourable results in our efforts toward increasing the production of animal protein. By innovative methods and long-term planning, such successes can be adapted and transferred to other regions of the world, with the aim of gradually lessening the present state of malnutrition and hunger.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alexandratos N (1988) World agriculture: toward 2000. Belhaven Press, London
Bardach JE, Ryther JH, McLarney WO (1972) Aquaculture. Wiley-Interscience, New York
Dasmann RF (1963) African game ranching. Pergamon Press, Oxford
Fodd and Agriculture Organization of the UN (1971) The state of food and agriculture. FAO, Rome
Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (1984) The state of food and agriculture. FAO, Rome
Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (1985) Food, land and people. FAO, Rome
Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (1986) African agriculture: the next twenty-five years. FAO, Rome
Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (1987) The fifth world food survey. FAO, Rome
Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (1989) Food outlook, no. 12. FAO, Rome
Gauthier-Pilters H, Dagg AI (1981) The camel. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Ledger HP, Sachs R, Smith NS (1967) Wildlife and food production, with special reference to the semi-arid areas of tropics and sub-tropics. Wld Rev Anim Prod 3:13–38
Smith AJ (1974) Beef cattle production in developing countries. University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh
World Resource Institute, in collaboration with the UN Environment and Development Programmes (1990) World resources 1990–91. Oxford University Press, New York
Young G (1969) Dry land and a hungry world. Trans NY Acad Sci 31:145–187
Yousef MK (1976) Synthesis and comments on future research: biometeorology and food production. In: Tromp SW, Bouma JJ (eds) Biometeorology, vol 6, part II. Swets and Zeitlinger, Amsterdam
Yousef MK (1982) Animal production in the tropics. Praeger, New York
Yousef MK (1985a) Stress physiology in livestock, vol II Ungulates. CRC Press, Boca Raton
Yousef MK (1985b) Stress physiology in livestock, vol III. Poultry. CRC Press, Boca Raton
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Yousef, M.K. Biometeorology and animal protein production: the case of arid lands. Int J Biometeorol 35, 176–179 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01049064
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01049064