The health of people and their farm animals in Kenya and other developing countries are closely linked (photo credit: ILRI/Charlie Pye-Smith).

‘While livestock contribute about 40 per cent of the value of agriculture and forms a crucial part of household wealth [in Kenya and many other developing countries], experts now say keeping animals is spreading disease and polluting the environment like never before.

‘They say that as smallholder agriculture intensifies—driven by increasing population, urbanisation and climate changes—livestock keeping is exhibiting its good and bad sides, impinging on the environment, poverty, food security and human health.

A recent study by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) says that zoonotic diseases (those transmitted to people from animals) that have recently emerged from animals make up to one-quarter of the infectious disease burden in low-income countries. Animal diseases that threaten people’s health directly include food-borne illnesses such as diarrhoea. . . .

‘“A…