Climate change: Production performance, health issues, greenhouse gas emissions and mitigation strategies in sheep and goat farming

Climate change is transforming the planet's ecosystem and threatening the well-being of current and future generations. The livestock sector plays an important role in climate change contributing with a significant share to the anthropogenic greenhouses gases (GHG) emissions. In particular, small ruminant farming plays a crucial socio-economic role in many countries and there is strong interest in measuring and improving environmental performance and production. This review provides an integrated overview on the effect of climate change on small ruminant production and health. Measurement and prediction of sheep and goat emissions and opportunities to mitigate GHG emissions from small ruminants are also discussed. The relationships among climate change, small ruminant production and health and GHG emissions are highlighted using the system thinking of analysis. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.