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Globally, the climate is changing, and this has implications for livestock. Climate affects livestock growth rates, milk and egg production, reproductive performance, morbidity, and mortality, along with feed supply. Simultaneously, livestock is a climate change driver, generating 14.5% of total anthropogenic Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. Herein, we review the literature addressing climate change and livestock, covering impacts, emissions, adaptation possibilities, and mitigation strategies. While the existing literature principally focuses on ruminants, we extended the scope to include non-ruminants. We found that livestock are affected by climate change and do enhance climate change through emissions but that there are adaptation and mitigation actions that can limit the effects of climate change. We also suggest some research directions and especially find the need for work in developing country settings. In the context of climate change, adaptation measures are pivotal to sustaining the growing demand for livestock products, but often their relevance depends on local conditions. Furthermore, mitigation is key to limiting the future extent of climate change and there are a number of possible strategies.
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The Role and Use of Mathematical Programming in Agricultural, Natural Resource, and Climate Change Analysis
Climate change undeniably impacts agriculture and natural resources, enterprises and markets. For informed decision making, there is a need for information on climate change adaptation possibilities and mitigation alternatives. Mathematical programming has been used to address the economic aspects of such questions and allows analysis as climate change moves the environment into previously unobserved conditions. It allows us to model spatial and dynamic features of the issue and analyze heretofore unobserved adaptation and mitigation possibilities. This review provides an overview of and references for modeling techniques, conceptual issues, and major assumptions involved with using mathematical programming as a climate change economic analyzing engine, along with a brief comparison with other methods. We also review a number of studies applying mathematical programming to examine climate change impacts, adaptation, and mitigation issues in the agricultural and natural resources arena. Finally, we present a very brief discussion on research needs. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Resource Economics, Volume 15 is October 2023. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1739977
- PAR ID:
- 10463885
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Annual Review of Resource Economics
- Volume:
- 15
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 1941-1340
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-resource-101422-041745
