Livestock and climate change

Raising and selling farm animals allows more than 1 billion people to make a daily subsistence living. But as essential as they are for food, income and health, these tropical livestock systems can damage as well as enhance land and water resources, and, like all livestock systems, they generate greenhouse gases that cause global warming. Research is helping poor livestock communities adapt to climate change, find sustainable ways to intensify their production, and, where possible, adopt methods to mitigate livestock-induced climate change.