2015 Pan Pacific Veterinary Conference

The Greater Mekong Subregion consists of six countries of mainland South-East Asia and is home to over 320 million people. The majority of these people are reliant on agriculture for their livelihoods and cattle and buffalo are kept for a variety of uses such as draft, wealth storage, cultural occasions and beef. The growing regional demand for red meat, particularly in Vietnam and China, is offering smallholder farmers an opportunity to increase market participation both contributing to improved food security and poverty alleviation. Our research has focused geographically in Cambodia and Laos, where foot-and-mouth disease and haemorrhagic septicaemia are endemic and cause significant large ruminant losses in productivity. The impacts of these diseases, be it on the smallholder farmer households, traders, community, nation and regional levels are poorly described, with a paucity of evidence for policy makers to economically justify improving ground level biosecurity. Using a systems approach, the University of Sydney Mekong Livestock Research Team has been investigating methods to improve large ruminant health and production. Significant progress has been made in understanding financial losses at the smallholder level, and recent efforts are now focused on describing impacts on the national levels.