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Books > Professional & Technical > Agriculture & farming > Animal husbandry > General
With this study the cattle guard joins the sod house, the windmill,
and barbed wire as a symbol of range country on the American Great
Plains. A U.S. folk innovation now in use throughout the world, the
cattle guard functions as both a gate and a fence: it keeps
livestock from crossing, but allows automobiles and people to cross
freely. The author blends traditional history and folklore to trace
the origins of the cattle guard and to describe how, in true folk
fashion, the device in its simplest form-wooden poles or logs
spaced in parallel fashion over a pit in the roadway-was reinvented
and adapted throughout livestock country. Hoy traces the origins of
the cattle guard to flat stone stiles unique to Cornwall, England,
then through the railroad cattle guard, in use in this country as
early as 1836, and finally to the Great Plains where, probably in
1905, the first ones appeared on roads. He describes regional
variations in cattle guards and details unusual types. He provides
information on cattle-guard makers, who range from local
blacksmiths and welders to farmers and ranchers to large
manufacturers. In addition to documenting the economic and cultural
significance of the cattle guard, this volume reveals much about
early twentieth-century farm and ranch life. It will be of interest
not only to folklorists and historians of agriculture and Western
America, but also to many Plains-area farmers, ranchers, and
oilmen.
The very mention of Afghanistan conjures images of war,
international power politics, the opium trade, and widespread
corruption. Yet the untold story of Afghanistan's seemingly endless
misfortune is the disruptive impact that prolonged conflict has had
on ordinary rural Afghans, their culture, and the timeless
relationship they share with their land and animals. In rural
Afghanistan, when animals die, livelihoods are lost, families and
communities suffer, and people may perish. That Sheep May Safely
Graze details a determined effort, in the midst of war, to bring
essential veterinary services to an agrarian society that depends
day in and day out on the well-being and productivity of its
animals, but which, because of decades of war and the
disintegration of civil society, had no reliable access to even the
most basic animal health care. The book describes how, in the face
of many obstacles, a dedicated group of Afghan and expatriate
veterinarians working for a small non governmental organization
(NGO) in Kabul was able to create a national network of over 400
veterinary field units staffed by over 600 veterinary para
professionals. These paravets were selected by their own
communities and then trained and outfitted by the NGO so that
nearly every district in the country that needed basic veterinary
services now has reliable access to such services. Most notably,
over a decade after its inception and with Afghanistan still in
free fall, this private sector, district-based animal health
program remains vitally active. The community-based veterinary para
professionals continue to provide quality services to farmers and
herders, protecting their animals from the ravages of disease and
improving their livelihoods, despite the political upheavals and
instability that continue to plague the country. The elements
contributing to this sustainability and their application to
programs for improved veterinary service delivery in developing
countries beyond Afghanistan are described in the narrative.
The rapidly changing nature of animal production systems,
especially increasing intensification and globalization, is playing
out in complex ways around the world. Over the last century,
livestock keeping evolved from a means of harnessing marginal
resources to produce items for local consumption to a key component
of global food chains. "Livestock in a Changing Landscape" offers a
comprehensive examination of these important and far-reaching
trends. The books are an outgrowth of a collaborative effort
involving international nongovernmental organizations including the
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UN FAO), the
International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), the Swiss
College of Agriculture (SHL), the French Agricultural Research
Centre for International Development (CIRAD), and the Scientific
Committee for Problems of the Environment (SCOPE). "Volume 1"
examines the forces shaping change in livestock production and
management; the resulting impacts on landscapes, land use, and
social systems; and potential policy and management responses.
"Volume 2" explores needs and draws experience from region-specific
contexts and detailed case studies. The case studies describe how
drivers and consequences of change play out in specific
geographical areas, and how public and private responses are shaped
and implemented. Together, the volumes present new, sustainable
approaches to the challenges created by fundamental shifts in
livestock management and production, and represent an essential
resource for policy makers, industry managers, and academics
involved with this issue
As Britain industrialized in the early nineteenth century, animal
breeders faced the need to convert livestock into products while
maintaining the distinctive character of their breeds. Thus they
transformed cattle and sheep adapted to regional environments into
bulky, quick-fattening beasts. Exploring the environmental and
economic ramifications of imperial expansion on colonial
environments and production practices, Rebecca J. H. Woods traces
how global physiological and ecological diversity eroded under the
technological, economic, and cultural system that grew up around
the production of livestock by the British Empire. Attending to the
relationship between type and place and what it means to call a
particular breed of livestock ""native,"" Woods highlights the
inherent tension between consumer expectations in the metropole and
the ecological reality at the periphery. Based on extensive
archival work in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia,
this study illuminates the connections between the biological
consequences and the politics of imperialism. In tracing both the
national origins and imperial expansion of British breeds, Woods
uncovers the processes that laid the foundation for our livestock
industry today.
Silk banners and stone dragons, dusty corrals and saddle
leather-the North China plains of the warlords meets the cowboy
culture of Western America in the years before World War II. Fred
Barton led this extraordinary adventure and enterprise to supply
horses for the feudal warlords, and only cowboys recruited from the
ranches and rodeo arenas of the Western states had the skill to
herd thousands of horses across Siberia, Mongolia, to China. Yet
Fred Barton himself remains enigmatic...a cowboy, adventurer,
promoter, who had his eyes on many prizes. Barton not only took his
version of the Old West to Russia and China, but also to Hollywood
at a time when the motion picture industry was constructing a myth
of the Old West just as open range cowboy life was disappearing.
This Montana bronc buster deliberately obscured parts of his life.
Along the way, Barton became part of the network of unofficial U.S.
intelligence in the Far East, bred a new type of horse, and
tirelessly defended the values of the open range cowboy. His legacy
lives on, affecting world events today, as told in this illustrated
biography.
So Far and Yet So Close provides a comparative study of frontier
cattle ranching in two societies on opposite ends of the globe. It
is also an environmental history that at the same time centres on
both the natural and frontier environments. There are many points
at which the western Canadian and northern Australian cattle
frontiers evoke comparisons. Most obviously they came to life at
about the same time: late 1870s-early 1880s. In both cases
corporations were heavy investors and utilized an open range system
in which tens of thousands of cattle roamed over thousands of
square acres. Ranchers shared similar problems such as predators,
disease, and weather, as well as markets. Ultimately, a nearly
indistinguishable "country" culture developed in these
geographically disparate and distant lands, which is still apparent
today. Many similarities were in one way or another a reflection of
frontier environmental conditions that is, conditions associated
with the very "newness" of society. They included a lack of
infrastructure (ie. fences), institutions (ie. police), and
population (ie. consumers). However, the ranching people in these
two societies had their differences too. In the end, the natural
environment pushed agricultural development in these two regions
along very different paths.
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