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Contemporary literature reveals that, to date, the poultry livestock sector has not received sufficient research attention. This particular industry suffers from unstructured supply chain practices, lack of awareness of the implications of the sustainability concept and failure to recycle poultry wastes. The current research thus attempts to develop an integrated supply chain model in the context of poultry industry in Bangladesh. The study considers both sustainability and supply chain issues in order to incorporate them in the poultry supply chain. By placing the forward and reverse supply chains in a single framework, existing problems can be resolved to gain economic, social and environmental benefits, which will be more sustainable than the present practices.

The theoretical underpinning of this research is ‘sustainability’ and the ‘supply chain processes’ in order to examine possible improvements in the poultry production process along with waste management. The research adopts the positivist paradigm and ‘design science’ methods with the support of system dynamics (SD) and the case study methods. Initially, a mental model is developed followed by the causal loop diagram based on in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and observation techniques. The causal model helps to understand the linkages between the associated variables for each issue. Finally, the causal loop diagram is transformed into a stock and flow (quantitative) model, which is a prerequisite for SD-based simulation modelling. A decision support system (DSS) is then developed to analyse the complex decision-making process along the supply chains.

The findings reveal that integration of the supply chain can bring economic, social and environmental sustainability along with a structured production process. It is also observed that the poultry industry can apply the model outcomes in the real-life practices with minor adjustments. This present research has both theoretical and practical implications. The proposed model’s unique characteristics in mitigating the existing problems are supported by the sustainability and supply chain theories. As for practical implications, the poultry industry in Bangladesh can follow the proposed supply chain structure (as par the research model) and test various policies via simulation prior to its application. Positive outcomes of the simulation study may provide enough confidence to implement the desired changes within the industry and their supply chain networks.

This study reveals that despite the negative effects of migration, the Tanzanian government has not done enough to address migration-related health issues. This is owing to inadequate data or information about effects of migration in the country. Dodoma region, the focus of this study, is selected for its migration-inducing factors as they relate to the declining health status of its inhabitants. Harsh climatic conditions causing irregular and inadequate rainfall and prolonged drought have led to a severe decline of the health of the poor. The region is entirely dependent on subsistence agriculture and livestock production. The small-scale production is locally practiced at household level. Extreme poverty motivates rural people to migrate to cities with the main migrant groups being middle school (about 13 to 15 years old) and high school dropouts (15 to 18 years old), and youth including young parents (18 to 35 years old). The rural-urban migration conjoined with harsh climatic conditions significantly downsizes local population, available agricultural labor force, and further endangers food security. More importantly, however, due to exposure to HIV in the cities, most migrants who are unable to find city jobs return home terminally ill with HIV/AIDS, which further adds to impoverishment of rural families and to downsizing of rural population.

Burkina Faso is a land-locked country, sharing a border with six other countries, namely Mali, Niger, Benin, Togo, Ghana, and Cote D'Ivoire in the zone of West Africa (Fig. 1). Due to the geographical location of the Sahel region, the country's climate is characterized by rainy and dry seasons. According to the Human Development Report in 2010, the country has a very weak economy with a GDP of 522 USD per habitant, principally based on agriculture (25%), animal production (12%), and forestry/fishery (3%) (MECV & SP/CONEDD, 2006a). The population growth is extremely high at 2.8%, with 46.4% of the population living below the national poverty line and 81.2% living on less than $2 a day (UNDP, 2009). The biomass energy is the largest primary energy source covering 80% of total consumption, thus accelerating soil degradation as well as deforestation.

Natural disasters occur all around the world, in the last two decades these natural disasters have brought sever damages to the world economy. Mostly developing countries bear severe consequences due to these natural disasters. In July 2010, Pakistan faced a massive flood, which affected almost all the countries. The disaster affected all sectors like daily life, transportation, infrastructure, etc., of the country. GOP did not have enough resources to cope with this giant disaster and called for international help. Local and international NGOs participated with GOP in the early phases of recovery. Millions of dollars were given away as the initial impact of this disaster, and GOP and other relief agents have spent other million to provide initial recovery and relief. GOP will need billions of dollars further to continue recovery from the disaster of 2010.

Agriculture and associated services are central to the rural economy of the United Kingdom. Rural veterinary enterprises are important providers of services to livestock producers, but are now facing concerns over their future economic viability. The objectives of this chapter are to outline the changes occurring in the veterinary and agricultural sectors, and to explore the main issues affecting veterinary enterprises in a changing business environment.

This is a conceptual chapter contextualised mainly within the United Kingdom. As such, the methodological approach comprises a critical review of current academic literatures, as well as government reports and relevant media articles.

The findings demonstrate that the commercial success of rural veterinary enterprises is critical to ensuring the future provision of high-quality animal health services to both farmers and government. The current issues facing farmers are likely to affect their willingness and resources to invest in veterinary services. Furthermore, farmers may have doubts as to vets’ ability to provide business-focussed services that add value. In addition, many public services are outsourced to private veterinary enterprises, and forthcoming policy changes are expected to lead to reduced income from public sources for both vets and their livestock farming clients. While wider issues affecting agriculture are beyond the control of private veterinary practitioners, veterinary enterprises will need to ensure that they can deal with such challenges and, where required, adapt their services accordingly.

The chapter is based on a review of extant literatures, and the scope of the research is therefore limited to existing knowledge about the farm animal veterinary business landscape.

The chapter summarises current knowledge of the challenges facing rural veterinary enterprises. While some of the issues described are specific to the veterinary sector, many are also relevant to other rural SMEs providing knowledge-intensive services to farmers. The chapter also describes areas requiring further empirical research.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming increasingly popular in agribusiness to help increase food production capacity for the ever-expanding global population. This chapter provides a holistic overview of the latest trends around the applications of IoT in agriculture. We begin by giving an overview of IoT and its capabilities, followed by a deep dive into the practical and realistic aspects of leveraging IoT into the agroecosystem. IoT is already being used for many intelligent agriculture applications, such as open-field agriculture, controlled environment agriculture (greenhouse), livestock breeding, agricultural machinery, and more. This chapter examines those applications and ventures beyond the farm into several other aspects of the ecosystem, including storage, warehouse ambiance control, agri-data analytics and decision control, logistics, environmental safety, etc. The contents of the chapter would be based on extensive studies and empirical analysis of the latest research papers on this subject from around the globe, accurately interpreted and transformed by the authors in light of their academic background and professional experience in the digital transformation arena.

This chapter deals with the impacts of climate change over food production and safety at every level, agriculture–aquaculture–livestock system–consumers, and attempts to propose possible solutions.