Isotope Aided Studies on Livestock Productivity in Mediterranean and North African Countries

Proceedings of the final research co-ordination meeting organized by the IAEA and the Direzione Generale per la Cooperazione Italiana allo Sviluppo, Rabat, Morocco, 23–27 March 1987. The production of meat, milk, wool and other products from grazing animals has a long and important tradition in countries around the Mediterranean and North Africa. Although there are many millions of both large and small ruminants in these countries, the output of livestock products is increasingly falling short of the demand created by human population expansion. To reverse, or at least slow down, this trend requires that better use be made of existing animal and feed resources — in effect to optimize individual productivity. The strategies to be adopted to optimize productivity need to be developed through both basic and applied research on breeding, feeding and other management practices. Nuclear techniques, employed in conjunction with standard methods, play an important role in developing a proper understanding of animal/environment interactions; they can also be used to examine how such interactions can be manipulated to minimize the impact of constraints and thereby to improve productivity.