Contagious bovine pleuropneumonia (CBPP) is an insidious disease that lingers in herds, causing significant morbidity and mortality. The policies to address the control and management of CBPP are in disarray at both the national and international levels. There has not been significant improvement in the efficacies of available vaccines or diagnostic assays for several decades. Classic strategies of mass vaccination and strict movement control that once were perceived as successful in rolling back the disease have largely fallen due to high costs, concerns of declining impact and growing public resistance. Officially, treatment with antibiotics is discouraged or prohibited, yet their use is widespread. CBPP is by all means an enigmatic disease, whose control probably requires a new paradigm or out-of-the-box thinking and executing approach. The purpose of this document is to provide an evidence-based policy for the implementation of sound control of CBPP by all stakeholders at all levels – global, regional and national. It describes a road map to CBPP control that is cognizant of the situation on the ground. While not being prescriptive, the document includes examples of combinations of interventions and control measures that should offer the opportunity to improve impact and hence offer better livelihoods to livestock producers.

In this issue of Veterinary Clinics of North America: Food Animal Practice, guest editors Drs. Elizabeth Parker, Charles Fossler, and Carla Huston bring their considerable expertise to the topic of Transboundary Diseases of Cattle and Bison. Top experts discuss the highly contagious diseases that affect cattle and bison and present strategies to mitigate the health risks. - Contains 11 relevant, practice-oriented topics including lumpy skin disease; Rift Valley fever; re-emerging/notifiable diseases to watch; outbreak investigations, compartmentalization/regionalization vaccination; and more. - Provides in-depth clinical reviews on transboundary diseases of cattle and bison, offering actionable insights for clinical practice. - Presents the latest information on this timely, focused topic under the leadership of experienced editors in the field. Authors synthesize and distill the latest research and practice guidelines to create clinically significant, topic-based reviews.

Following the re-introduction of the African swine fever virus (ASFV) in the Americas after 40 years of absence, FAO conducted a qualitative risk assessment for the likelihood of entry of ASF from the Dominican Republic and Haiti to unaffected countries and territories of the Americas and the likelihood of exposure to susceptible animal populations should the disease be introduced. In addition, the potential economic and social impact of ASFV spreading across the continent was assessed. The risk assessment covers the period of December 2021 to February 2022 and considered six risk pathways of introduction and spread. The methodology, information used and results of the risk assessment and economic impact assessment are available in this publication along with recommendations for prevention and control of ASFV introduction and spread in the region. In addition, the publication compiles information collected from 35 countries/territories in the Americas through a questionnaire and presents evidence on the complex swine/pork value chains in the region retrieved from various sources.

Soils contribute to the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals through carbon sequestration. By enhancing soil health and fertility, soils can play a crucial role in climate action, land degradation neutrality, and alleviating hunger. The present study provides a spatially explicit report on the state of grassland soils and can be used as a baseline for future work to explore the impacts of livestock management on soil carbon at regional, country and farm levels. Assessing the current state of grassland systems and their potential to sequester carbon in the soil is of key importance to understand the trade-offs between grassland services on food security, biodiversity conservation and climate mitigation.

Lumpy skin disease (LSD) is a vector-borne disease of cattle and Asian water buffalo that is included on the OIE (World Organisation for Animal Health) list of notifiable diseases. In July 2019 LSD was introduced to Bangladesh, China and India and then spread to Nepal and Bhutan and in 2020 to various provinces of China and India. A qualitative risk assessment was conducted to assess the likelihood of introduction and/or spread of LSD in 23 countries in South, East and Southeast Asia based on information available up to 31 October 2020. The economic impact of LSD for South, East and Southeast countries was estimated to be up to USD 1.45 billion in direct losses of livestock and production. These losses may be higher, due to the severe trade implications for infected countries. This document provides an overview of LSD control approaches, including prevention. The cost-effectiveness estimation demonstrates a strong economic justification for vaccination and advocates for a regional approach to harmonize control measures.

Pastoral systems have evolved to function with the natural environment and therefore with variability. By identifying variability as an entry point, this paper aims at (i) engaging FAO in the mainstreaming of pastoralism by establishing the understanding of pastoralism, and its systematic inclusion in the normal operations of FAO, and at (ii) presenting an evidence based narrative on pastoralism to a specialists’ audience. Two main points are made in this document: First, pastoral systems are emblematic of farming with nature. Second, pastoral systems make use of variability in inputs (the environment) by matching it with variability in their own operational processes (flexibility in movements, animal breeds, labour force, etc.) in such a way as to reduce the variability in outputs (animal production and health, household’s food security, etc). Since 2015, the Pastoralist Knowledge Hub (PKH) has helped creating an institutional space for connecting and coordinating work on pastoralism within FAO. An Inter-Departmental Working Group on Pastoralism has been formed. The conceptual framework of this paper and early versions have benefited from comments and guidance of FAO staff as well as of specialists of pastoralism worldwide.

Pastoralists make the most of resources distributed unevenly over space and time to provide a range of goods and services. Operating in a shock-prone environment, pastoralists deploy endogenous strategies such as mobility, diversification in agriculture or in non-agricultural activities, management of social networks, etc. However, accurate and reliable knowledge about the economics of pastoralism is yet to be understood and absorbed at the local, regional and national levels, based on reliable data. In the absence of such knowledge, governments and private firms neglect investment that would allow those systems to better connect to markets, and are unable to provide appropriate services, infrastructure and tenure security. With Argentina, Chad and Mongolia as pilot cases, this study by CIRAD, commissioned by FAO, funded by IFAD and facilitated by pastoralist associations (Fundación Gran Chaco, Réseau Billital Maroobé, and the National Federation of Pasture User Groups), aimed to fulfil this knowledge gap through a multifunctional assessment of pastoral production systems and their economic contribution. Importantly, incorporating self-consumption of pastoralist households’ productions themselves as an key component of gross revenue shows a significant increase in their contribution to national GDPs. The diversified sources of revenue and the importance of self-consumption also indicate that pastoral systems fulfil a range of functions (income, food security, flexible labor, etc.). Further, the study promotes close cooperation between pastoralist associations, research institutions and development partners. Such new partnerships allow strengthening the capacity of those pastoralist associations in collecting and managing their own data, as well as using this data in policy dialogue.