OBJECTIVES Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) constitute a potentially susceptible group towards environmental exposures such as livestock farm emissions, given their compromised respiratory health status. The primary aim of this study was to examine the association between livestock exposure and comorbidities and coexisting symptoms and infections in COPD patients. ME...

Genome research in animals used in agriculture has progressed rapidly in recent years, moving from rudimentary genome maps to trait maps to gene discovery. These advances are the result of animal genome projects following closely in the footsteps of the Human Genome Project, which has opened the door to genome research in farm animals. In return, genome research in livestock species is contribu...

Livestock provides an important source of income and nourishment for around one billion rural households worldwide. Demand for livestock food products is increasing, especially in developing countries, and there are opportunities to increase production to meet local demand and increase farm incomes. Estimating the scale of livestock yield gaps and better understanding factors limiting current p...

Where wildlife act as a reservoir of disease for domestic mammals, measures solely based on management of either in isolation are unlikely to resolve the problem. Many such diseases can have serious economic implications for farmers and the economy and their management can present considerable challenges. Traditionally, wildlife populations have been culled in attempts to reduce the risks of di...

The use of biological and thermochemical conversion (TCC) technologies in livestock waste-to-bioenergy treatments can provide livestock operators with multiple value-added, renewable energy products. These products can meet heating and power needs or serve as transportation fuels. The primary objective of this work is to present established and emerging energy conversion opportunities that can ...

The UK Government seeks to put the promotion of animal welfare and the protection from animal disease at the ‘core of the way in which we farm and live’ (Defra, 2002). To do so, it recognises that it must encourage animal keepers to adopt good practice by identifying and assessing the real benefits of improvements in animal health and welfare (Defra, 2003). This challenge will be greatest but p...

A new empirical nitrogen (N) leaching model was applied at detailed agricultural data at field level, obtained from a questionnaire survey including two small catchments. Getting agricultural data from two public electronic registers concerning the 592 km Mariager Fjord catchment, the leaching results were extrapolated from the two reference catchments to the Mariager Fjord catchment, data grou...

A typology was developed to provide a framework for examining the environmental impact of dairy farming and for setting priorities for environmental enhancement. This essentially differentiates systems according to the way in which farmland is managed combining economic/technical classification criteria (see section 2), bio-geographical region and forage and fodder resources (see section 3). Us...

Rosemarie Weikard, Elisabeth Altmaier, Karsten Suhre, Klaus M. Weinberger, Harald M. Hammon, Elke Albrecht, Kouji Setoguchi, Akiko Takasuga, and Christa Kühn Research Unit Molecular Biology, Leibniz Institute for Farm Animal Biology (FBN), Dummerstorf; Institute of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany; Biocrates Life Sciences Aktiengesellschaft, Inn...

Listeria monocytogenes is a significant food-borne human and veterinary pathogen. Contaminated silage commonly leads to disease in livestock, but the pervasive nature of the bacterium can make it difficult to identify the source of infection. An investigation of bovine listeriosis that occurred on a Pacific Northwest dairy farm ("farm A") revealed that the clinical strain was closely related to...