Healthy, disease-free, and resistant livestock and crops are pivotal to protecting a nation's food security
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Food security
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), food security exists when every person has regular access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to meet dietary needs and choices for an active, healthy life. It has four main pillars: availability, accessibility, utilisation, and stability.
Importance of Food Security
Food security is important for the health and development of every individual in a population. It helps prevent malnutrition, hunger, and diet-related diseases by providing a healthy, nutritious diet. It promotes economic development by reducing health-related issues and increasing workforce efficiency. It also promotes social order by reducing migration, unrest, and community conflicts driven by food shortages. Food security helps in improving national security. A population with a secure food supply is less affected by crises caused by natural disasters, conflicts, and supply disruptions.
The Role of Livestock in Food Security
Livestock is very important for global food security as it generates approximately 40% of the global value of agricultural output and also supplies 33% of human protein consumption. Livestock provides milk, meat, and eggs, which are highly rich in protein, iron, zinc, vitamin B12, and calcium. Their daily consumption advances individual development in both cognitive and physical domains.
Livestock boosts agricultural development through manure and draught power and serves as an alternative source of food during crop failures. Grazing animals can convert otherwise unproductive vegetation into a food source. Animal health is an important component of food security because healthier livestock leads to more food production and better efficiency. Disease-free animals lead to disease-free humans.
An important but often overlooked aspect of animal health in relation to food security is that healthy livestock reduces the transmission of zoonotic diseases, thereby protecting public health, preventing production losses, and ensuring a safe and secure food supply. Animal health directly affects productivity, food safety, public health, and a nation's broader food security.
Diseases in animals lead to poor growth, reduced milk yields, compromised reproductive performance, lower meat output, and higher mortality. These outcomes reduce food availability, lower farmers' incomes, and threaten rural livelihoods. Consequently, maintaining healthy livestock is central to both the quality and quantity of animal-origin food. However, the increased presence of drug residues, particularly antimicrobials, which are associated with the emergence of multidrug-resistant microbes, poses a threat to human, animal, plant, and environmental health.
Disease surveillance and systematic monitoring are critical for detecting, containing, and controlling animal diseases before they intensify. Surveillance involves continuous collection, analysis, and interpretation of animal health data to identify outbreaks, track prevalence, and spot emerging infections. Effective systems enable timely responses to zoonotic threats such as Brucellosis, Rabies, Avian Influenza, and Bovine Tuberculosis that endanger both animal and human health.
Core components include routine health checks, mandatory reporting, laboratory diagnostics, monitoring of vaccination coverage, quarantine and movement controls, and epidemiological investigations. Good hygiene and sanitation are also mandatory for healthy livestock.
According to a report published in The Times of India on 23rd November 2023, pests and livestock diseases are a major challenge, accounting for 35% of the economic losses in India’s livestock sector. The article highlights that Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) alone results in an annual loss of Rs 23,000 crore, while Brucellosis causes a loss of Rs 20,000 crore each year. These massive losses underscore the urgent need for robust animal health management and disease control strategies.
The data, originally derived from Dr. Rahman’s study at ICAR-NIVEDI, Bengaluru, highlight the significant economic impact of animal diseases on the livestock sector and their wider implications for national food security.
Role of Agriculture and Allied Sectors
Agriculture has a major impact on food security, as it is a primary source of food supply and livelihoods. Agriculture provides basic availability of essential nutrients required for a healthy life. Fruits, vegetables, and pulses help reduce or overcome global malnutrition. Rice, wheat, maize, pulses, and oilseeds provide access to energy and protein. Good crop management practices preserve soil fertility, use water efficiently, and enhance cropping systems, all of which remain essential for increasing productivity and resilience to climatic stresses.
Newly developed high-yielding varieties of fruits, cereals, and other crops can increase production and improve a nation's food security. Further, healthy, resistant crops and horticulture varieties lead to a decreased incidence of diseases and pests, reducing production losses and thereby augmenting the food security of a nation as a whole.
Resistant and elite varieties and strains of crops pave the way for reduced use of chemicals, hormones, pesticides, and fertilisers, thereby improving the quality of plant foods in terms of food safety, security, and overall environmental safety. Fisheries and aquaculture development are important for providing high-quality nutrition, particularly high-quality protein and essential fatty acids like omega-3s, which are important for brain development and overall health. Fisheries are important sources of employment, particularly in coastal and inland regions, consequently reducing pressure on other food sources.
Forestry contributes directly and indirectly to food security by producing non-timber edible products such as fruits, mushrooms, nuts, and medicinal plants. Healthy forests prevent soil erosion, regulate the climate, conserve water and biodiversity, provide economic benefits, improve air quality, protect against natural disasters, support livestock production, and thus support food security.
Supplementary and complementary role of livestock and allied sectors in promoting food security: Livestock supports agriculture by providing manure and crops used in animal feeding, thus supporting each other. Agriculture supplies residues and by-products used in animal fodder. Thus, healthier, more efficient livestock and better agricultural methods promote a nation's food production not only in quantity but also in safety and quality.
To realise the full potential of livestock, agriculture, forestry, and aquaculture, it is necessary to address factors such as degraded natural resources, post-harvest losses, poor infrastructure, limited market access, and climate change. Besides proper preservation, processing and storage are important for reducing damage to livestock and agricultural produce, thereby enhancing a nation's food security.
Policy priorities include encouraging efficient production practices and climate-smart agriculture; investing in value chains, including cold-chain storage, processing, and marketing; supporting small-scale producers; extending credit and insurance schemes; and ensuring diversification across livestock, agriculture, fisheries, and crops. Nevertheless, strengthening natural resource governance to balance food production alongside ecological conservation is also essential.
National food security is important for a nation's development and prosperity. It enables the nation to remain self-sufficient, thereby protecting and defending its sovereignty. Livestock, agriculture, and allied sectors are essential to a nation's food security. Thus, healthy, disease-free, and resistant livestock and crops are pivotal to protecting a nation's food security. Thus, major emphasis needs to be placed on promoting and propagating healthier, higher-quality livestock and crop production.
Various challenges in the current scenario endangering the livestock and agriculture, thus indirectly harming the national food security, include excessive use of drugs, hormones, pesticides, chemicals, etc. in intensive farming systems, climate and environmental pollution, growing urbanisation and industrialisation, emerging and re-emerging diseases in livestock, deforestation, and desertification. Addressing the above challenges can greatly enhance a nation's food security.
India, primarily being an agricultural country with most of its population dependent on livestock and agriculture, thus addressing the above challenges concurrently with the modernization can also upgrade and improve the economic and aesthetic status, preserve the cultural heritage of a nation, besides raising the health standard of citizens and improving the workforce efficiency of its population.
(The Author is HOD Veterinary Medicine, SKUAST Kashmir)