Ecosystem Services in Livestock Agroecosystems

Livestock agroecosystems play a vital role in rural development, landscape management, and food security, despite public debate often focusing on their environmental and welfare challenges. The guide, Ecosystem services assessment in livestock agroecosystems, from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) reframes the discussion, highlighting four main categories of ecosystem services these systems provide:

• Provisioning: Supplying food and fibre
• Regulating: Managing climate, air quality, water, disease, pollination, and natural hazards
• Cultural: Offering recreational, aesthetic, educational, social, and spiritual value
• Supporting: Enabling soil formation, photosynthesis, and water & nutrient cycling

To achieve sustainable livestock production, the guide calls for a harmonised international approach using the Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES). It proposes a five-step roadmap for robust and transparent valuation, integrating biophysical, socio-cultural, economic, and modelling methods. This initiative aims to provide reliable evidence for policy and management and lays the groundwork for consistent international guidance. Livestock agroecosystems are more than food systems — they are living ecosystems. Download the document.