In world agriculture, as well as the cultivation of grain crops, livestock production is almost everywhere prevalent. At the same time, meadows and pastures occupy three times more in the structure of land lands than arable land. The main part of livestock production is provided by countries located in the temperate climate zone. First of all, the geography of world livestock production is determined by the conditions for livestock. At the same time, three branches of animal husbandry play a leading role in development: cattle breeding, as well as pig and sheep breeding.
There is a big difference in the development of livestock production in developing and developed countries. In developed countries , livestock production prevails over agriculture and the intensive type of farming is used for it. In most developing countries, livestock is a secondary industry and is conducted extensively. In developed countries, improved feed supply, industrialization and breeding in livestock have led to their great success in its intensity. As a result, livestock farming faces the same problems in them as agriculture - overproduction of products occurs. Therefore, the governments of such states are forced to pursue a policy of containment and reduction of production.
Cattle (in the world there are about 1.3 billion heads) provides almost all milk production and more than a third of the meat production. The most characteristic is the milk direction for the densely populated areas of North America and Europe, which are located in the forest and steppe zones of the temperate zone. Beef and dairy cattle breeding is widespread not only in these zones where there is intensive agriculture, but also in more arid regions, where there are much fewer labor resources. Beef cattle breeding was primarily developed in the arid regions of the subtropical and temperate zones. Such reasons for the spread of certain branches of animal husbandry are determined not only by climatic conditions, but also by the presence of a forage base for raising livestock.
The most dynamically developing livestock industry in modern times is pig breeding. In the world now there are more than 800 million pigs. Advances in the development of pig farming have led to the fact that the cost of pork is less than the cost of beef. It is important that pig breeding is possible not only in areas where grazing is carried out, but is often carried out year-round in stalls using imported feed and food industry waste. However, the grazing of pigs with sufficient land areas is poorly distributed due to the fact that in these areas it is much more profitable to develop such livestock industries as cattle breeding and sheep breeding. In addition, pig farming is practically absent in Muslim countries for religious reasons.
Usually pig breeding is located closer to densely populated areas and to areas where potato growing and other sectors for the cultivation of feed products are intensively developing. Almost half of the total pig population in the world falls on the countries of Asia, primarily China. Other livestock industries, in particular sheep breeding, also prevail in areas where there is extensive pasture. Moreover, in areas where a more arid climate, as well as on semi-desert and steppe pastures, fine-fleeced sheep breeding is often conducted. In those areas where the climate is milder and they are better provided with moisture, meat-and-wool sheep farming prevails. The largest sheep breeding site in the world is the semi-desert and steppe regions of Australia.