Constraints and opportunities to improve livestock production and health, and reduce zoonotic risks in small-scale native chicken, cattle and small ruminant farms in the Central Dry Zone of Myanmar

Abstract

The Central Dry Zone (CDZ) supports 10 million people whose livelihoods depend on dry-land agriculture and small-scale livestock rearing. The CDZ has the highest livestock concentration in Myanmar, but characteristics of livestock production and health in this region have not been evaluated in detail. There is a need to understand the opportunities and limitations and for livestock production in the CDZ in order to develop methods to improve livestock production and disease control, to enhance the financial returns and living standards and, under the one-health paradigm, improve the nutrition and health status of farmers. Therefore, the objectives of this research were to describe husbandry and livestock health management and attitudes of small-scale cattle, small ruminant and village chicken farmers and to explore farmer's behaviours towards the prevention of livestock diseases and the risk of acquiring zoonotic diseases from livestock.Cross-sectional studies were conducted with 613 cattle, sheep and goat and village chicken farmers in 40 villages of the CDZ and with 63 stakeholders associated with livestock trading. Farming practices were compared between different livestock ownership groups and logistic, ordinal and multinomial regression models were used to quantify the association between husbandry practices on livestock rearing outcomes (such as livestock health, biosecurity and income generation). Path analysis and multilevel mixed modelling were applied to identify factors that affect small-scale livestock farmers' decisions to vaccinate their livestock against Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) and Newcastle Disease (ND). In addition, attitudes, beliefs and barriers to the application of recommended zoonotic disease prevention approaches and social networks of livestock movements and trading density were explored to identify their impact on farmer's perceptions on the risk of acquiring zoonotic diseases.Multispecies rearing was a frequent occurrence with 51.7% (95%CI: 42-61%) of farmers rearing more than one livestock species. Rearing animals to be sold as adults for slaughter (meat production) was more common for small ruminants (98.1%) and chickens (99.8%) compared to cattle (69.8%). A substantial proportion of farmers in the CDZ derived their main income from crop production (43.2%), followed by livestock production (23.1%).Patterns of grazing differed between seasons (p<0.05) for cattle, but not for small ruminants.

Livestock owners’ anthrax prevention practices and its associated factors in Sekota Zuria district, Northeast Ethiopia

“…This indicates that educating people is of paramount importance in increasing the proportion of livestock owners with appropriate anthrax disease prevention practices. Other earlier studies also reported similar findings [17,20,21].…”

“…This might because urban dwellers have better access to information and veterinary services which enable them to prevent anthrax appropriately. In addition, urban dwellers are more likely to get animal health care services since most vaccinations and information campaigns focus on areas with better infrastructure, such as roads [17]. This observation is supported by previous reports which reveal that the risk for zoonosis is significantly higher among rural farms compared to peri or urban ones (P < 0.05), and rural communities commonly consume raw milk, meat and blood [15,18,19] .…”