Crop farming, livestock and fishing

Livestock farming provides much of the world’s meat, milk and eggs. Cattle farming specialises in meat and milk; it is intensive in forest-steppe zones and extensive, nomadic in dry regions; India and Brazil lead in cattle numbers. Sheep farming thrives on steppes, semi-deserts and dry mountain pastures: Australia and New Zealand give wool and meat, while dry regions give meat, hides and karakul (Uzbekistan’s karakul sheep are famous). Pig farming is spread where grain and potatoes are abundant and near cities; China has the most pigs; for religious reasons the branch is almost absent in most Muslim-majority countries. Poultry farming develops in grain areas and near cities and is a fast-growing source of cheap protein. Camel breeding is found in deserts (Somalia, Sudan), reindeer herding in the north (Russia, Canada) and silkworm rearing in the temperate zone (China, India, Uzbekistan). Fishing supplies protein; most of the catch comes from the Pacific Ocean and, among seas, the North, Norwegian, Bering and Okhotsk Seas. China, Indonesia, India, Peru and Vietnam lead; today more than half of the fish and seafood people eat comes from farming (aquaculture). Overfishing is depleting fish stocks.