Livestock Domestication

Making a Pig of the Humanities: Re-centering the Historical Narrative

This article proposes that features of human biology and behavior that are often considered are associated with the evolution of complex society, in humans. These features are often analogous to physiological and behavioral differences found in other animals with complex societies (some species of ants, wasps and bees). process of social evolution is itself a selective agent and produces parallel features in animal species across genera and distinguishes those with complex societies from closely related species within their own genera in ways that make them appear (1). This is especially seen in humans as we have become a species with complex society in a short period of time, only one species has survived and achieved complexity and this complexity has had what seems to be a dramatic effect on the environment. Because human features that are considered are relatively new in human evolution or have unknown dates of origin (2) the conditions leading to their appearance is of interest. Aspects of mammalian social systems (e.g. monogamy & polygyny) have been shown to vary due to a number of factors (3). It is apparent, however, that we are ignorant of how quickly other complex animal societies appeared and what their immediate effect was on the environment. Some features of complexity that seem unique may also be associated with domestication. This approach is an advance in anthropology as it places recent human evolution in the context of the evolution of social complexity of other animal species who have achieved food production and domestication of other species and it reasserts Boasian emphasis of uniformitarianism of evolution over resurgent concepts of The Great Chain of Being or man as the crown of creation.

Omega-3 Fatty Acids in Metabolism, Health, and Nutrition and for Modified Animal Product Foods

Infrastructure in animal husbandry refers to fundamental facilities and services necessary for better living conditions of animals and its economy to function through better productivity. Mainly, infrastructure can be divided into two categories: hard infrastructure and soft infrastructure. Physical infrastructure, such as buildings, roads, and water supplying systems, belongs to hard infrastructure. Soft infrastructure includes services which are required to maintain economic, health, cultural and social standards of animal husbandry. Therefore, the proper management of infrastructure in animal husbandry is necessary for animal welfare and its economy. Among various technologies to improve the quality of infrastructure, non-thermal plasma (NTP) technology is an effectively applicable technology in different stages of animal husbandry. NTP is mainly helpful in maintaining better health conditions of animals in several ways via decontamination from microorganisms present in air, water, food, instruments and surfaces of animal farming systems. Furthermore, NTP is used in the treatment of waste water, vaccine production, wound healing in animals, odor-free ventilation, and packaging of animal food or animal products. This review summarizes the recent studies of NTP which can be related to the infrastructure in animal husbandry.

The El Argar society of the Bronze Age in the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula (2200–1550 cal BCE) was among the first complex societies in Europe. Its economy was based on cereal cultivation and metallurgy, it was organized hierarchically, and successively expanded its territory. Most of the monumentally fortified settlements lay on steeply sloped mountains, separated by fertile plains, and allowed optimal control of the area. Here, we explore El Argar human diets, animal husbandry strategies, and food webs using stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of charred cereal grains as well as human and animal bone collagen. The sample comprised 75 human individuals from the sites of La Bastida (n = 52) and Gatas (n = 23), 32 domesticated and wild animals as well as 76 barley and 29 wheat grains from two chronological phases of a total time span of ca. 650 years. The grains indicate extensive cereal cultivation under rain-fed conditions with little to moderate application of manure. Especially at La Bastida, crops and their by-products contributed significantly to the forage of the domesticated animals, which attests to a strong interrelation of cultivation and animal husbandry. Trophic level spacing and Bayesian modelling confirm that human diets were largely based on barley with some contribution of meat or dairy products. A cross-sectional analysis of bone collagen suggests that children were breastfed until about 1.5–2 years old, and infants from Gatas may have suffered from more metabolic stress than those at La Bastida. Adults of both sexes consumed similar diets that reflect social and chronological variation to some extent. Despite significantly higher δ13C and δ15N values at La Bastida than at Gatas, the isotopic data of the staple crops and domestic animals from both sites indicate that such differences do not necessarily correspond to different average human diets, but to agricultural strategies. These results urge for a reassessment of previous isotope studies in which only human remains have been taken into account. The study highlights that disentangling the complex influences on human isotope compositions requires a firm set of comparative data.

Increased knowledge of reproduction and health of domesticated animals is integral to sustain and improve global competitiveness of U.S. animal agriculture, understand and resolve complex animal and human diseases, and advance fundamental research in sciences that are critical to understanding mechanisms of action and identifying future targets for interventions. Historically, federal and state budgets have dwindled and funding for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) competitive grants programs remained relatively stagnant from 1985 through 2010. This shortage in critical financial support for basic and applied research, coupled with the underappreciated knowledge of the utility of non-rodent species for biomedical research, hindered funding opportunities for research involving livestock and limited improvements in both animal agriculture and animal and human health. In 2010, the National Institutes of Health and USDA NIFA established an interagency partnership to promote the use of agriculturally important animal species in basic and translational research relevant to both biomedicine and agriculture. This interagency program supported 61 grants totaling over $107 million with 23 awards to new or early-stage investigators. This article will review the success of the 9-year Dual Purpose effort and highlight opportunities for utilizing domesticated agricultural animals in research.

It is anticipated that a 50% to 70% increase in food productivity will be needed to feed 9 billion people by 2050. Livestock provide for about 33% of human protein consumption and 17% of total calories (FAO, 2018). The demand for livestock products is estimated to more than double in the next 20 yr, as a result of urbanization, economic growth, and a change in consumption patterns in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The livestock sector represents nearly 1 billion smallholder livestock producers in developing countries and contributes 40% of agricultural Gross Domestic Product and from 2% to over 33% of household incomes. Smallholder livestock production is largely based on family farming and is key to poor rural people’s livelihoods, food security, and employment creation. Livestock provide food for household consumption, products for income generation, and quick cash when emergencies and external shocks occur (i.e., climatic conditions, diseases, and price volatility). Livestock are important assets that respond to the multiple needs of smallholders (e.g., manure, draught, and hauling power), while also having a cultural and spiritual value. Poultry and small ruminants are generally managed by and provide direct benefits to women (Gueye, 2003; FAO, 2020; IFAD, 2020). Humans and our domesticated animals have evolved in unison over the past 11,000 yr, with domestication frequently portrayed as a relationship delivering benefits to both partners, human and domesticate (Zeder, 2012). Domestication sites and traditional production systems have strong links with local agroecological characteristics (Hocquette et al., 2018). Endurance of traditional production systems has also been closely linked with the maintenance of the health of the local environment by Hocquette et al. (2018). Unsustainable and/or inappropriate management of livestock has contributed to environmental degradation, loss of biodiversity, emerging infectious zoonotic disease, and increased emission of greenhouse gases (van Zanten et al., 2019). These impacts have increased in severity in line with increasing human population, purchasing power, and urbanization since the mid-20th century (Thornton, 2010). This paper provides a high-level overview of the huge array of contributions made by livestock to human society beyond the provision of food and fiber with a focus on terrestrial, vertebrate species. With a focus on LMICs, we stress the significant role of livestock in sustainable development, including: ecosystems services via nature-based livestock production systems; sociocultural and religious roles; and, contributions to human health and well-being beyond animal-source food.

The main and basic purpose of this research is to investigate and analyze the function of literature in contemporary times, when the mirror of truth is broken into a thousand pieces and human society is more involved than ever. They create new difficulties and fight over them, and in the meantime, people are the victims. Therefore, with its systematic activities, literature overcomes these fences drawn in front of human society with artistic language. The fact that today's human society is falling into misery with each passing day, without a doubt, one of the reasons is that human society is far from literature. This is because in most societies, especially in the third world societies, reductionist positions have been adopted towards literature, and these positions are another step towards damage and nigritude. The method used in this research is descriptive-analytical and based on library studies. In this research, while philosophically examining the place of literature in modern times, we will also briefly mention some writers who have turned the unsaid of today's people into words through poetry and literature. The findings showed that, in the epoch of the collapse of meaning and fencing between people in human society, literature is the only one that gives us the possibility of considering ourselves as members of each other everywhere in this world. It is through literature that today's people understand and recognize one another, despite their differences based on faith, religion, geography, gender, etc. Therefore, literature in our time is the real defender of the common phenomena among humans.

The agricultural world today is dominated by a few domesticated mammal species, that is, animals modified from their wild ancestors through selective breeding in captivity for traits beneficial to human usages. As a result, a clear dichotomy exists between wild (from hunting) and domesticated mammals (produced in farms) used for human consumption. Similar to agriculture, aquaculture is often viewed as the only solution that can provide more fish products given that harvesting wild stocks have reached an upper limit. Aquaculture is considerably younger than agriculture relying on natural sources to farm numerous species. To better describe the diverse strategies for fish production, we propose a new classification comprising five levels of ‘domestication’ with 1 being the least to 5 being the most domesticated. Our classification places 70% of the 250 farmed finfish species recorded in the 2009 FAO database into levels 1, 2 and 3 representing a transitory form of fish production dependent on the availability of the wild resource. In contrast, only a few species, or more accurately populations, can be considered truly domesticated, similar to cattle or sheep. Based on this classification, two scenarios for the future of aquaculture are discussed: either the industry focuses on few truly domesticated species, similar to the path taken by agriculture, but avoiding its negative impacts or aquaculture proceeds with inter‐specific diversification by focusing primarily on the domestication of native species.

"The emergence of animal welfare provisions by humane societies has limited management practices. One of these provisions is the animal's freedom to express normal behavior. Animal by-product feeding to livestock and poultry is a common management practice and it is stigmatized in the public eye and some animal welfare activists. Certification processes by organizations like the Humane Farm Animal Care association are trying to remove the use of animal by-products from animal feed and move to more "vegetarian diets" due to the belief that the consumption of animal by-product is not part of the animal's normal behavior. In the United States, animal by-product is everything produced by the animal except for the dressed meat which is used for human consumption (Jayathilakan, 2011). Animal by-products have a variety of uses, in both edible and inedible forms. In the agriculture industry, all the animal is utilized to maximize profits and minimize waste. ... Choice feeding allows for animals to express normal behavior, which is important in today's societal climate where pressure to change animal welfare standards is prevalent. The freedom to express normal behavior falls under one of the Five Freedoms of Animal Welfare (Farm Animal Welfare Council). With increasing competitiveness of the poultry industry, the need to cut costs while maximizing feed efficiency and growth of the animals is a recurring theme. Use of animal by-products allows for efficient production of poultry. Use of animal by-products is a cheap and effective alternative to plant-based protein sources in the feed industry. Additionally, the importance of utilizing animal by-products is undervalued as it impacts several industries outside animal feed. Allowing poultry to choose between various feed ingredients including animal by-products should be considered an expression of normal behavior."--Introduction

Simple SummaryConsideration of animal welfare in food choices has become an influential contemporary theme. Traditional animal welfare views about food have been largely restricted to direct and intentional harms to livestock in intensive animal agriculture settings. However, many harms to animals arising from diverse food production practices in the world are exerted indirectly and unintentionally and often affect wildlife. Here we apply a qualitative analysis of food production by considering the breadth of harms caused by different food production systems to wild as well as domestic animals. Production systems are identified that produce relatively few and relatively many harms. The ethical implications of these findings are discussed for consumers concerned with the broad animal welfare impacts of their food choices.Ethical food choices have become an important societal theme in post-industrial countries. Many consumers are particularly interested in the animal welfare implications of the various foods they may choose to consume. However, concepts in animal welfare are rapidly evolving towards consideration of all animals (including wildlife) in contemporary approaches such as “One Welfare”. This approach requires recognition that negative impacts (harms) may be intentional and obvious (e.g., slaughter of livestock) but also include the under-appreciated indirect or unintentional harms that often impact wildlife (e.g., land clearing). This is especially true in the Anthropocene, where impacts on non-human life are almost ubiquitous across all human activities. We applied the “harms” model of animal welfare assessment to several common food production systems and provide a framework for assessing the breadth (not intensity) of harms imposed. We considered all harms caused to wild as well as domestic animals, both direct effects and indirect effects. We described 21 forms of harm and considered how they applied to 16 forms of food production. Our analysis suggests that all food production systems harm animals to some degree and that the majority of these harms affect wildlife, not livestock. We conclude that the food production systems likely to impose the greatest overall breadth of harms to animals are intensive animal agriculture industries (e.g., dairy) that rely on a secondary food production system (e.g., cropping), while harvesting of locally available wild plants, mushrooms or seaweed is likely to impose the least harms. We present this conceptual analysis as a resource for those who want to begin considering the complex animal welfare trade-offs involved in their food choices.

The transition from food collection to food production (FP) modified the nature of selective pressures, and several studies illustrate that genetic adaptation to new lifestyle has occurred in humans since the agricultural revolution. Here we test the hypothesis that high levels of genetic variation at CYP2D6, a locus coding for a detoxifying enzyme of the cytochrome P450 complex, reflect this change. We compared DNA sequences and predicted the levels of enzyme activity across 10 African, Asian and European populations, six of which currently rely on hunting and gathering (HG) while four on food production (FP). HG and FP showed similar levels of CYP2D6 diversity, but displayed different substitution patterns at coding DNA sites possibly related to selective differences. Comparison with variation at presumably neutral independent loci confirmed this finding, despite the confounding effects of population history, resulting in higher overall variation in Africans than in Eurasians. The differences between HG and FP populations suggest that new lifestyle and dietary habits acquired in the transition to agriculture affected the variation pattern at CYP2D6, leading to an increase in FP populations of the frequency of alleles that are associated with a slower rate of metabolism. These alleles reached a balanced co-existence with other important and previously selected variants. We suggest that the pronounced substrate-dependent activity of most of these enzymes expanded the spectrum of the metabolic response.

The article presents the results of an archaeo-zoological analysis of a post-consumption collection of 2,226 bone fragments, and a set of bone artefacts from an early medieval (second half of the 9th – first half of the 10th century) settlement in Dakowy Mokre. The inhabitants’ economy was based on the breeding of domesticated mammals and birds, supplemented to a small extent by hunting wild animals: deer, roe deer, wild boar and hares. In animal husbandry, the most important role was played by small cattle used as a source of meat and fat, as well as milk and draught power. Of lesser importance were medium-sized pigs, sheep, goats, and domestic chickens. These animals provided mainly food products (meat, fat, eggs). Animal products were also used, including bone raw material used to make various items (carding combs, spikes, needles).

This paper examines the relationships between urban consumers and rural producers of animal products during the period when the earliest post‐Roman urban sites first appear in eastern England. The mammal and bird faunas from a Middle Saxon emporium (Ipswich), two Middle Saxon rural sites (Brandon and Wicken Bonhunt) and an Early Anglo‐Saxon village (West Stow) are examined in order to determine how early urban sites were supplied with animal products and the effect that this early urban growth had on systems of rural animal production. The data indicate that the urban emporium of Ipswich was provisioned with meat from a limited range of domestic animal species. Contemporary rural sites show evidence for increasing specialization in some aspects of animal production – pork production at Wicken Bonhunt and wool production at Brandon – when compared with the faunai remains from the Early Saxon village of West Stow. The data suggest that there is a integral relationship between the development of the emporia as centres of craft production and trade and the appearance of increasing specialization in certain animal products at rural sites.

The breeding of domestic animals has a longstanding and successful history, starting with domestication several thousand years ago. Modern animal breeding strategies, predominantly based on population genetics, artificial insemination (AI) and embryo transfer (ET) technologies led to significant increases in the performances in domestic animals and are the basis for the regular supply with high-quality animal-derived food at acceptable prices. A recent addition to this arsenal of technologies is the separation of spermatozoa into X- and Y-chromosomes bearing populations by means of flow cytometry, which is going to be transferred into commercial cattle breeding. Moreover, reproductive biotechnologies are currently being complemented by new measures of molecular genetics. The genomes of several domestic animals have been sequenced and annotated. Important uses of genomic data include improving selective breeding strategies, studying expression patterns (transcriptomics or proteomics) and the production of transgenic animals tailored for specific production purposes. The technology for the production of transgenic animals, either by additive gene transfer or by selective deletion (knockout), has been advanced to the level of practical application. A crucial step in this context was the development of somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) cloning, which has replaced the previously used rather inefficient method of microinjection for producing transgenic animals. In this review, we discuss recent advances in important areas of animal biotechnology related to agricultural applications, including sperm sexing, somatic cloning, genome and transcriptome research, transgenesis and recombinant DNA vaccines with emphasis on large domestic species.