Healthy Animals, Healthy Planet
Healthy Animals Support Sustainability
Healthier animals need fewer natural resources, allowing them to provide more food for less feed, water, and land. Keeping animals healthy is central to achieving the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) by 2030. Around the world, 20% of annual global animal production losses are linked to animal disease. These losses represent not only an animal welfare crisis, but also feed, water, and carbon emissions to be spent with little to no benefit to our food supply. The good news is that data indicates that controlling livestock disease has multiplier benefits for economic, environmental, and social sustainability.
Emissions: Lower Livestock Disease Can Positively Impact Emissions
When examining the connection between livestock and emissions, disease management is a critical component of sustainability efforts. Modeling of global data by Oxford Analytica suggests that while sick animals are associated with increases in livestock greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and land use, animal vaccinations correlate to reductions in both.
Land Use: The Connection Between Animal Disease, Vaccination, & Land Use
Sick animals require more land. Global research has found significant associative relationships between disease levels, vaccination rates, and land use:
- When 20% of poultry globally are affected by disease each year, 8.6% more land is estimated to be necessary to maintain expected production levels.
- A 40% global vaccination rate for cattle in a given year is associated with a 5.2% reduction in land required for livestock production.
Economic Sustainability: Healthy Animals Mean Stronger Agriculture
Globally, at least 1.3 billion people rely on animal agriculture for their livelihood and food security. Livestock provides labor, nutrition, and economic growth. When livestock are lost to illness, the effects reverberate throughout communities. And when animals are kept healthy through vaccines, diagnostics, and parasiticides, the ripple effect can be positive.
Hunger: The Relationship Between Animal Disease & Human Hunger
Research indicates that higher rates of disease among livestock are associated with higher levels of undernourishment and food insecurity among the world’s population. For example, poultry disease was associated with a 2% increase in global hunger in 2018 and 5% in 2019. This is equivalent to global hunger increasing by 13.6 million people in 2018 and 34.39 million in 2019.
In contrast, vaccination among livestock is associated with lower levels of undernourishment and food insecurity.
Animal Health and UN SDGs
Our industry is helping meet UNSDGs
The Connection Between Sustainability & Animal Health
Keeping animals healthy can address UN SDG goals related to reduced emissions, hunger, malnutrition, and poverty. Around the world, the animal health industry is doing its part to help reach the UNSDGs by 2030.
Furthermore, innovations in animal health therapies can reduce the threat of disease by strengthening immunity, improving prevention, enabling earlier and more specific diagnosis, and facilitating more accurate, effective treatment.
Sustainable Benefits of New Vaccines
More effective vaccines and delivery mechanisms can help protect more animals against diseases, which means:
- Protecting the livelihoods of the millions worldwide who rely on livestock (SDG 1, 8 and 10)
- Reducing the need for antibiotics, which minimizes the risk of antimicrobial resistance and helps protect public and environmental health (SDG 3, 15)
- Reducing the risk of zoonotic diseases passing from animals to people by preventing them in animals in the first place (SDG 3)
Sustainable Benefits of Alternatives to Antibiotics
Developing new products that prevent or treat bacterial infection while reducing the burden on antibiotics offers benefits for animal health and wellbeing, as well as:
- Improving efficiencies in animal agriculture, which generates greater income for farmers (SDG 1 and 8) and produces more food for the global supply chain (SDG2)
- Reducing the risk of antimicrobial resistance, which strengthens global public health (SDG3)
- Reducing the potential impact of antibiotic use on the environment (SDG12)
Sustainable Benefits of Digital Technologies
Early detection of diseases and individually targeted treatments can bring benefits to animal health and help support sustainable development, for instance:
- Reducing costs associated with sick animals and supporting agricultural productivity around the world (SDG 1, 2 and 8)
- Optimizing the use of labor and creating new opportunities for agricultural workers and youth (SDG 1 and 8)
- Improving the accuracy of diagnostics and treatments, thereby reducing the need for antibiotics and helping protect public health (SDG 3)
Sustainable Benefits of Diagnostics
Improved diagnostics—remote as well as on-site—will help protect animals against severe disease, which also means:
- Safeguarding the livelihoods of millions of people who rely on livestock (SDG 1, 2 and 8)
- Reducing the use of antibiotics, thus helping minimize potential antimicrobial resistance, which is a major public health threat (SDG 3)
- Limiting the transmission of zoonotic diseases that spread between animals and humans (SDG 3)
Sustainable Benefits of Parasite Control
New methods for parasite control can help improve animal health and manage resistance to existing technologies, which can deliver sustainability improvements such as:
- Greater productivity as a result of improved health (SDG1, 2 and 8)
- Reducing the potential impact of parasiticide use on the environment (SDG 12)
Sustainable Benefits of Nutrition
Improving animal health through precision nutrition, feed additives, and biological parasiticides offers multiple benefits to animal health and wellbeing, as well as greater sustainability, such as:
- Greater productivity as a result of improved health (SDG1, 2 and 8)
- Increased levels of traceability for consumers (SDG12)
- Fewer resources needed and lower emissions (SDG13 and 15)
Sustainable Benefits of Safe Development
Developing ways to test new drugs or treatments that require fewer animals can protect animal welfare while making product research and development safer and more sustainable through:
- Developing treatments faster and with more precision to protect agricultural livelihoods (SDG1 and 8)
- Sharing knowledge of biomarkers across human and animal health (SDG3)
- Reducing the cost and losses of live animals (SDG12 and 15)