Distribution (density) of poor livestock keepers based on the international US$2.00/day poverty line in 2010 (published in a research brief by J Otte and R Leslie, Animal Health and Production Commission for Asia and the Pacific [APHCA], Jan 2013).

‘. . . [A]mong largely agrarian economies, which are home to the majority of the world’s poor, livestock are an integral part of smallholder crop-livestock farming systems. There is thus much greater scope for investment in livestock sector development for poverty reduction than generally realized, particularly in development that enables smallholders to take advantage of the growing demand for livestock products by more affluent members of society. . . .

‘Nearly three-quarters of the extremely poor—that is around 1 billion people—live in rural areas and, despite growing urbanization, more than half of the “dollar-poor” will reside in rural areas until approximately 2035. Most rural households depend on agriculture as part of…