The role of small scale livestock farming in climate change and food security

Worldwide, livestock production is an activity that allows people to eat meat, milk- related products or eggs. Additionally, livestock has traditionally provided of leather for shoes or clothes, of energy in the form of work to plough the soil or simply to transport people long distances. In many regions, livestock is an essential component of the livelihood of the community and is also a necessary complement of the agricultural activity: animals eat plants in rangelands that cannot otherwise be consumed or cultivated and produce organic fertilizer in the form of manure. They also are a key component in maintaining natural landscapes in many areas. Small scale livestock farming (SSLF) is probably the best example of the long-term traditional balance between human being, livestock and agriculture with nature, a system in which each component obtains a benefit. The complexity and variety is enormous: thousands of domestic species adapted to many different geoclimatic contexts. During the last century other forms of growing livestock have been developed, in which livestock farming is considered an industrial activity in a global economy of scale separated from agriculture. Each system has different characteristics, different stakeholders, different beneficiaries, different positive and negative impacts on society and the environment, and is affected differently by agricultural, development or environmental policies, including those for mitigation and adaptation to climate change (CC).Peer reviewe