{"id":2088,"date":"2025-01-22T09:32:58","date_gmt":"2025-01-22T08:32:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/agronomy\/?p=2088"},"modified":"2025-01-22T09:32:58","modified_gmt":"2025-01-22T08:32:58","slug":"the-changing-role-of-livestock-in-agrarian-systems-a-historical-and-multifunctional-perspective-from-southern-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/agronomy\/2025\/01\/22\/the-changing-role-of-livestock-in-agrarian-systems-a-historical-and-multifunctional-perspective-from-southern-india\/","title":{"rendered":"The changing role of livestock in agrarian systems: a historical and multifunctional perspective from southern India"},"content":{"rendered":"<script type='text\/javascript' src='https:\/\/d1bxh8uas1mnw7.cloudfront.net\/assets\/embed.js'><\/script><figure style=\"width: 404px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.springernature.com\/full\/springer-static\/image\/art%3A10.1007%2Fs13593-024-00999-9\/MediaObjects\/13593_2024_999_Fig1_HTML.png\" alt=\"Examples of livestock functions in the study area today: weeding and hoeing a groundnut field using draft power (A) and selling sheep for meat purposes at Anantapur livestock market (B) Photocredit: C. Hemingway\" width=\"414\" height=\"159\" aria-describedby=\"Fig1\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Examples of livestock functions in the study area today: weeding and hoeing a groundnut field using draft power (A) and selling sheep for meat purposes at Anantapur livestock market (B) Photocredit: C. Hemingway<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div id=\"Abs1-content\" class=\"c-article-section__content\">\n<p>Farm animals are often lumped together into a single \u201clivestock\u201d entity, reduced to the production of milk and meat and accused of being the cause of major environmental disruptions. However, livestock farming systems are highly diverse, and the functions of livestock encompass multiple dimensions. Based on the methods of comparative agriculture and the quantification of animal labor energy on farms, we explore the changing roles of livestock in a semi-arid area of southern India from the 1950s to the present day. We provide a typology of farms that reveals the evolution of agronomic, economic, food and power supply functions of livestock according to the social diversity of farms of the study area. This study provides key insights to nuance livestock debates: (i) livestock serves a wide range of functions beyond mere food production, (ii) livestock remains necessary for agricultural production despite most agronomic and power supply functions having been impaired by motorized mechanization and the use of synthetic fertilizers, (iii) crop-livestock integration has declined at farm\u00a0level but has strengthened between farms at\u00a0area\u00a0level, (iv) livestock is neither an attribute of the rich nor the poor. This research, therefore, highlights the complexity of livestock farming systems. It combines historical, biophysical, social and ethnographic perspectives with descriptions of unique livestock-related practices that could improve the sustainability of agriculture.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"c-bibliographic-information__citation\">Hemingway, C., Ruiz, L., Vigne, M. <i>et al.<\/i> The changing role of livestock in agrarian systems: a historical and multifunctional perspective from southern India. <i>Agron. Sustain. Dev.<\/i> <b>45<\/b>, 7 (2025). https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/s13593-024-00999-9<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Farm animals are often lumped together into a single \u201clivestock\u201d entity, reduced to the production of milk and meat and accused of being the cause of major environmental disruptions. However, livestock farming systems are highly diverse, and the functions of livestock encompass multiple dimensions. Based on the methods of comparative agriculture and the quantification of &#8230; <a title=\"The changing role of livestock in agrarian systems: a historical and multifunctional perspective from southern India\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/agronomy\/2025\/01\/22\/the-changing-role-of-livestock-in-agrarian-systems-a-historical-and-multifunctional-perspective-from-southern-india\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about The changing role of livestock in agrarian systems: a historical and multifunctional perspective from southern India\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":168,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sustainable-livestock-farming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/agronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/agronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/agronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/agronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/168"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/agronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2088"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/agronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2089,"href":"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/agronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2088\/revisions\/2089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/agronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/agronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ist.blogs.inrae.fr\/agronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}