Beyond milk, meat, and eggs: Role of livestock in food and nutrition security

A widely used defi nition, dating back to the World Food Summit in 1996, is that food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to suffi cient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life (see http://www.who.int/trade/glossary/story028/en/). Food security, as commonly used in development discourse, emphasizes food quantity more than food quality: the term “nutrition security” is used to capture the quality dimension. The contributions made to the diets of the world’s seven billion people by cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, and a dozen or so lesser known but locally important species (such as guinea fowl, yaks, and camels) are complex and multidimensional. They include direct and indirect impacts, which can be either benefi cial or harmful to overall food supply and food and nutrition security. Amelia Ubisse with one of her goats and a fresh baget in a village near Marracuene, near Maputo, Mozambique (photo credit: ILRI/Stevie Mann). Beyond milk, meat, and eggs: Role of livestock in food and nutrition security