Big things
Famed writer and futurist Alvin Toffler once said, “You’ve got to think about big things while you’re doing small things, so that the small things go in the right direction.” Good advice that applies to the livestock sector as well. There is never a shortage of “small” things facing producers and their organizations every day. And by “small”, I don’t mean unimportant!
But what about the big things? More than ever, consumers see livestock as livestock. They don’t differentiate much between beef, pork and others. On top of that, the big things facing livestock today are huge and far too big for any one sector to tackle by itself. And even if they could, there is a shared vulnerability which means that all sectors need to move forward, or all are at risk.
I suggest that the “big” things include:
- the impacts of livestock on climate change and soil health
- antimicrobial resistance (taking a new One Health approach)
- transmissible disease/zoonoses
- genetics
- “animal-free” milk, eggs and meat
These are the topics of our Horizon Series, each with a white paper and a webinar with an expert in the field. Check them out on our site.
LRIC was formed in part to be thinking about the big things - let us know what you think.
