SUSTAINABLE LIVESTOCK PRODUCTION SYSTEM : A SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW

Abstract

The livestock systems are facing a mounting pressure all over the world to balance the mounting demand of the animal based food and the need urgency of the livestock systems with the sustainability issues on the environment, the economy and the social issues. It is a systematic review of the published empirical studies on the strategies of sustainable livestock production that have been published after 2014 and 2024 and followed PRISMA regarding convergent parallel mixed-method design. The number of studies that were used was 168 and this was following quality screening using big databases. A quantitative meta-analysis found that sustainable intervention had cut down the level of greenhouse gas emission by an average of 18.6 percent, land-use efficiency by 12.4 percent and water footprints by 15.8 percent at the expense of the conventional systems. The economic forecasts revealed that there were moderate increases in initial investments (mean 14.7) which had a positive return on investment in three to five years with most of the interventions especially precision livestock farming and regenerative grazing systems. According to the qualitative synthesis, the enhancement of resiliency of farmers and better animal welfare, enhanced community and gender-inclusive livelihoods benefits have been voiced as the most significant social outcomes, though its implementation is hindered by economical and informational barriers and ambiguous policies. It has been demonstrated through the cross-dimensional analysis that there is no optimal intervention that can be offered to maximise the environmental, economic, and social outcomes simultaneously and context-dependent system-level transition pathways need to be taken into account. This review is based on the socio-ecological systems and transition theory frameworks since it outlines the enabling conditions, such as the policy incentives, financial access, and the extension services as an influencer of a scalable change. The results give combined evidence-based facts to policy-makers, scientists and practitioners that would desire to apply sustainable livestock production in the face of global climatic and food security issues.