Table 4.

Some current key vulnerabilities and strengths of people in different livestock production systems. Livestock production systems as defined by Seré and Steinfeld (1996) and mapped in Robinson et al. (2011): livestock grazing systems (LG) and mixed systems (M) in arid (A), humid (H) and temperate (T) regions. Table adapted from Rivera-Ferre et al. (2016).

	Grazing systems	Mixed crop-livestock system	Industrial system
Vulnerability	• Political marginalization • Land encroachment • Land degradation • Land fragmentation • Remoteness • Reliance on physical labour related to limited mechanization • Lack of financial capital and alternative economic options • Conflicts (civil conflicts, conflicts over resources) • Land ownership and tenure arrangements (e.g. communal land tenure can limit land and infrastructure improvements)	• Limited mobility • Land degradation • Land scarcity especially from urban expansion • Rising food safety standards • Population growth • Economic margins often small and financial capital often low, resulting in lock-in • Economic competition favouring cropping • Co-managing price and climate variability • Learning and capital demands from having multiple farm components • Labour supply for peak periods of activity • Shrinking farm sizes	• Dependence on external inputs and hired labour • Energy intensive • Difficulties in re-locating built-up capital • Narrow gene pools in livestock and input crops • Large, high-yielding animals are more susceptible to heat stress and disease • High-yielding crops are often more sensitive to heat and water stress • Challenges in waste disposal and animal welfare impacting on social licence to operate • Susceptibility to disease outbreaks • Low economic margins • Operating close to or at maximum physiological and financial limits • Integrated in highly efficient value chains
Adaptation capacity	• Mobility to adapt to spatial and temporal climate variability • Family labour • Communal land and social collaboration • Local knowledge of diverse resources • Capacity to add value to marginal land via provision of ecosystem services • Wide livestock gene pool • Recycling plant nutrients • Transformation to mixed systems • Off farm income	• Integration of agriculture and livestock • Capacity to use crop residues • Often private land, hence have agency • Flexibility in crop-livestock allocation and other decisions • Diversification • Family labour • Wide livestock and forage gene pool • Recycling plant nutrients • Flexibility in allocating produce to subsistence or market • Off farm income	• Access to global feed and input supply chains • Access to credit and modern technology • Access to global consumer market • Capital mobility and exploiting economies of scale • Control of many aspects of the system • Good information systems (climate, financial, supply) allowing rapid responses