The growing role of animal hygiene for sustainable husbandry systems

The chapter describes the growing challenges for agriculture and the food industry such as the increasing hunger in the world, the climate change, the need for alternative energy sources, the rapid urbanization, the growing demands for high quality and food safety, and, last but not least: all these demands need solutions that fulfil the criteria of sustainability. Starting from the present and upcoming changes in animal husbandry for the production of food of animal origin, the future role of veterinary medicine is as intensively explained as the need to transform the task of veterinary medicine from the traditional healing of disease into prevention and the implementation of a “One-health-concept”, which means: animal health and animal welfare as entity for promoting the health and well being of people. In the then following, animal hygiene as one of the major tools to achieve and maintain the sustainability of animal husbandry by developing husbandry systems that use animal health- and welfare-oriented production practices and protect the environment by intelligent waste and emission management programmes is described in detail.