Sustainable sheep and goat production through strategic nutritional management and advanced technologies

Abstract A sustainable future for sheep and goat production throughout the world is that derived from pastures and forages, grazed in situ, utilizing resources such as hill lands that are unable to support other productive enterprises. Providing appropriate nutrition, especially from non-human edible supplemental ingredients, to achieve production and profitability goals of the landholder can be challenging in these situations. This chapter uses case studies from New Zealand and the United States of America to highlight productivity and efficiency improvements over the past 30 years, and challenges associated with balancing the needs of production, biodiversity and urbanization, as a template to highlight the practical changes of forage use, management techniques and nutritional practices that have underpinned those changes. The principles highlighted may act as a blueprint for future efficiency gains and reduction of the environmental footprint of animal agriculture systems using pasture and forage-based nutrition systems.