Stud Managers' Handbook, Vol. 19

Frank H Baker, Mason Miller

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000313437
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Biology
• Index: Biological Sciences

The 1984 International Stockmen's School Handbooks include more than 200 technical papers presented at this year's Stockmen's School, sponsored by Winrock International. The authors of these papers are outstanding animal scientists, agribusiness leaders, and livestock producers who are expert in animal technology, animal management, and general fields relevant to animal agriculture. The Handbooks present advanced technology in a problem-oriented form readily accessible to livestock producers, operators of family farms, managers of agribusinesses, scholars, and students of animal agriculture. The Beef Cattle Science Handbook, the Dairy Science Handbook, the Sheep and Coat Handbook, and the Stud Managers' Handbook each include papers on such general topics as genetics and selection; general anatomy and physiology; reproduction; behavior and animal welfare; feeds and nutrition; pastures, ranges, and forests; health, diseases, and parasites; buildings, equipment, and environment; animal management; marketing and economics (including product processing, when relevant); farm and ranch business management and economics; computer use in animal enterprises; and production systems. The four Handbooks also contain papers specifically related to the type of animal considered.

Preface

The Stud Managers' Handbook includes presentations made at the International Stockmen's School, January 8-13, 1984. The faculty members of the School who authored this fourth volume of the Handbook, along with books on beef cattle, dairy cattle, and sheep and goats, are scholars, stockmen, and agribusiness leaders with national and international reputations. The papers are a mixture of technology and practice that presents new concepts from the latest research results of experiments in all parts of the world. Relevant information and concepts from many related disciplines are included.

The School was held annually from 1963 to 1981 under Agriservices Foundation sponsorship; before that it was held for 20 years at Washington State University. Dr. M. E. Ensminger, the School's founder, is now Chairman Emeritus. Transfer of the School to sponsorship by Winrock International with Dr. Frank H. Baker as Director occurred late in 1981. The 1983 School was the first under Winrock International's sponsorship after a one-year hiatus to transfer sponsorship from one organization to the other.

The five basic aims of the School are to:

1. Address needs identified by commercial livestock producers and industries of the United States and other countries.
2. Serve as an educational bridge between the livestock industry and its technical base in the universities,
3. Mobilize and interact with the livestock industry's best minds and most experienced workers.
4. Incorporate new livestock industry audiences into the technology transfer process on a continuing basis.
5. Improve the teaching of animal science technology.

Wide dissemination of the technology to livestock producers throughout the world is an important purpose of the Handbooks and the School. Improvement of animal production and management is vital to the ultimate solution of hunger problems of many nations. The subject matter, the style of presentation, and the opinions expressed in the papers are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Winrock International.

This Handbook is copyrighted in the name of Winrock International, and Winrock International encourages its use and the use of its contents. Permission of Winrock International and the authors should be requested for reproduction of the material.

Acknowledgments

Winrock International expresses special appreciation to the individual authors, staff members, and all others who contributed to the preparation of the Stud Managers' Handbook. Each of the papers (lectures) was prepared by the individual authors. The following editorial, secretarial, and word processing staff of Winrock International assisted in reading and editing the papers for delivery to the publishers:

Editorial Assistance

• Jim Bemis, Editor
• Essie Raun, Assistant editor
• Paula Gerstmann, Research assistant
• Randy Smith, Illustration editor
• Venetta Vaughn, Illustration editor and proofer
• Melonee Baker, Proofer
• Elizabeth Getz, Proofer
• Joan Hart, Proofer
• Beverly Miller, Proofer
• Mazie Tillman, Proofer

Secretarial Assistance and Word Processing

• Patty Allison, General coordinator
• Ann Swartzel, Secretary
• Tammy Henderson, Secretary
• Shirley Zimmerman, Coordinator of word processing
• Darlene Galloway, Word processing
• Tammie Chism, Word processing
• Jamie Whittington, Word processing

Part 1
Global and National Issues

1
Applying Agricultural Science and Technology to World Hunger Problems

Norman E. Borlaug

Agriculture and food production have been my primary concerns in research, but by necessity, I have developed interest in the broad fields of land use—or misuse—and demography.

If one is involved in food production, it naturally follows that one must be concerned about the land base upon which we depend for food production and the number of people that land base must feed.

In the total plan of things, our earth is very small. On the surface, more than three-quarters of it, approaching 78% or 79%, is water, most of it salt water or ocean. Some is inland water, sweet waters, and lakes. Less than one-quarter of the earth's surface is land, but 98% of worldwide food production was produced on the land in 1975.

When we examine it, some of the land in the world is bad real estate (table 1). As far as arable land is concerned, only 11% of the total land area is classified as suitable for agriculture. Another 22% is classified as

TABLE 1. LAND RESOURCES OF THE EARTH

Land type	Area, ha (millions)	% of total land area
Arable land (annual and permanent crops)^a	1,457	11
Permanent meadows and pastures^b	2,987	22
Forest and woodland Other (tundras, subarctic wastes, deserts, rocky mountainous wastes, cities, highways)	4,908	37
	4,908	37

Sources FAO Production Yearbook (1972).

^aOf the arable land area, 48% (698 million hectares) is cultivated to cereal grains.

^bTotal agricultural land, therefore, is about 33%.

suitable for grazing and animal industry. Both of these agricultural uses account for about 33% of our total land area. An additional 30% is classified as forestland and woodlots. The remaining 37% is called "other." "Other" means mostly wasteland, arctic tundra, deserts, rocky mountain slopes with very little soil on them, or good agricultural land that has been covered by cities, pavements, and highways. We continue to cover this good land at an appalling rate in many parts of the world, not only in the U.S. Several million acres of good land go out of production each year because it is easier and less costly, apparently, to build on flat land than on sloping land. On the surface, at least, this seems to be the case.

Feeding four Billion People

When we talk about food, we need to have some concept of how much food is needed to feed this population of 4.6 billion and about the possibilities of producing enough to maintain stability—social, economic, and political—in the next 4 decades.

When we consider food, we must consider it from three standpoints:

1. From the standpoint of biological need, which should be self-evident, for without food you can live only a few weeks at most, assuming you entered the famine or starvation situation in good health.
2. From an economic standpoint, the worth of food depends entirely on how long it has been since you had your last food and what your expectancies are for food in the future.
3. From the political standpoint, the importance of food can be observed when stomachs are empty. It makes no difference whether it is a socialistic or communistic system or whether it is a free enterprise system. To illustrate, think back several years ago to the devastating drought in the Sahel. You saw the consequences on your television screens—the misery and poverty and hunger. Six governments fell as a result of the shortages of food and the misery and suffering of their masses.

Anyone engaged in attempting to increase world food production soon comes to realize that human misery resulting from world food shortages and world population growth are part of the same problem. In effect, they are two different sides of the same coin. Unless these two interrelated problems and the energy problem are brought into better balance within the next several decades, the world will become increasingly more chaotic. The social, economic and political pressures, and strife are building at different rates in different countries of the world, depending upon human population density and growth rate and upon the natural resource base that sustains the different economies. The poverty in many of the developing nations will become unbearable, standards of living in many of the affluent nations may stagnate, or even retrogress. The terrifying human population pressures will adversely affect the quality of life, if not the actual survival, of the bald eagle, stork, robin, crocodile, wildebeest, wolf, moose, caribou, lion, tiger, elephant, whale, monkey, ape, and many other species. In fact, world civilization will be in jeopardy.

Unfortunately, in privileged, affluent, well-educated nations such as the U.S., we have concerned ourselves with symptoms of the complex malaise that threatens civilization, rather than with the basic underlying causes. In recent years, we have been attacking these ugly symptoms by passing new legislation or filing lawsuits against companies, individuals, or various government agencies for polluting the environment. Most of these lawsuits just fatten the incomes of lawyers without solving the basic problems.

The Human Population Monster

Most of us are either afraid, or are unwilling, to fight the underlying cause of most of this malaise...The Human population Monster. The longer we wait before attacking the primary cause of this worldwide problem—with an intelligent, unemotional, effective, and humane approach—the fewer of our present species of fauna and flora will survive.

About 12,000 yr ago, the humans who had been roaming the earth for at least 3 million yr, invented agriculture and learned how to domesticate animals. World population then is estimated to have been approximately 15 million. With a stable food supply, the population growth rate accelerated. It doubled four times to arrive at a total of 250 million by the time of Christ. Since the time of Christ, the first doubling (to 500 million) occurred in 1,650 yr. The second doubling required only 200 yr to arrive at a population of 1 billion in 1850. That was about the time of the discovery of the nature and cause of infectious diseases and the dawn of modern medicine—which soon began to reduce the death rate. The third doubling of human population since the time of Christ, to 2 billion, occurred by 1930...only 80 yr af...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Index of Authors
• List of Other Books of Interest Published by Westview Press and Winrock International