Animal Feed
Animal feed is food given to domestic animals, especially livestock, in the course of animal husbandry. There are two basic types: fodder and forage. Used alone, the word feed more often refers to fodder. Animal feed is an important input to animal agriculture, and is frequently the main cost of the raising or keeping of animals. Farms typically try to reduce cost for this food, by growing their own, grazing animals, or supplementing expensive feeds with substitutes, such as food waste like spent grain from beer brewing.
Animal wellbeing is highly dependent on feed that reflects a well balanced nutrition. Some modern agricultural practices, such as fattening cows on grains or in feed lots, have detrimental effects on the environment and animals. For example, increased corn or other grain in feed for cows, makes their microbiomes more acidic weakening their immune systems and making cows a more likely vector for E. coli,[1] while other feeding practices can improve animal impacts. For example, feeding cows certain kinds of seaweed, reduces their production of methane, reducing the greenhouse gases from meat production.[2]
When an environmental crisis strikes farmers or herders, such as a drought or extreme weather driven by climate change, farmers often have to shift to more expensive manufactured animal feed, which can negatively effect their economic viability. For example, a 2017 drought in Senegal reduced the availability of grazing lands leading to skyrocketing demand and prices for manufactured animal feed, causing farmers to sell large portions of their herds.[3] Additionally agriculture for producing animal feed puts pressure on land use: feed crops need land that otherwise might be used for human food and can be one of the driving factors for deforestation, soil degradation and climate change.[4]
Nottingham (/ˈnɒtɪŋəm/ (About this soundlisten) NOT-ing-əm) is a city and unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, England. Part of the East Midlands region, it is 128 miles (206 km) north of London and 45 miles (72 km) northeast of Birmingham. To the west lies Derby, separated by the M1 motorway.
Nottingham has links to the legend of Robin Hood and to the lace-making, bicycle (notably Raleigh bikes) and tobacco industries. It was granted its city charter in 1897, as part of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee celebrations. Nottingham is a tourist destination; in 2018, the city received the second highest amount of overnight visitors in the Midlands and the highest amount in the East Midlands.
In 2017, Nottingham had an estimated population of 329,200. The population of the city proper, compared to its regional counterparts, has been attributed to its historical and tightly-drawn city boundaries. The wider conurbation, which includes many of the city's suburbs, has a population of 768,638. It is the largest urban area in the East Midlands and the second-largest in the Midlands. Its Functional Urban Area, also the largest in the East Midlands, has a population of 919,484. The population of the Nottingham/Derby metropolitan area is estimated to be 1,610,000.
Its metropolitan economy is the seventh largest in the United Kingdom with a GDP of $50.9bn (2014).[12] The city was the first in the East Midlands to be ranked as a sufficiency-level world city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network.
Nottingham's public transport system won awards prior to 2015, including the largest publicly owned bus network in England, and is also served by Nottingham railway station and the modern Nottingham Express Transit tram system.
It is also a major sporting centre and, in October 2015, was named 'Home of English Sport'. The National Ice Centre, Holme Pierrepont National Watersports Centre and Trent Bridge international cricket ground are all based in or around the city, which is also the home of two professional football teams; the former world's oldest professional league club Notts County and Nottingham Forest, famously two-time winners of the UEFA European Cup under Brian Clough and Peter Taylor in 1979 and 1980. The city also has professional rugby, ice hockey and cricket teams, and the Aegon Nottingham Open, an international tennis tournament on the ATP and WTA tours. This accolade came just over a year after Nottingham was named as the UK's first City of Football.
On 11 December 2015, Nottingham was named a "City of Literature" by UNESCO, joining Dublin, Edinburgh, Melbourne and Prague as one of only a handful in the world. The title reflects Nottingham's literary heritage, with Lord Byron, D. H. Lawrence and Alan Sillitoe having links to the city, as well as a contemporary literary community, a publishing industry and a poetry scene.
The city is served by three universities: the University of Nottingham, Nottingham Trent University and the University of Law; hosting the highest concentration of higher education providers in the East Midlands.