Systems Thinking Perspectives on Stewardship and Our Future

Gerald L Stokka; T Robin Falkner

doi:10.1016/j.cvfa.2022.02.002

Systems Thinking Perspectives on Stewardship and Our Future

Vet Clin North Am Food Anim Pract. 2022 Jul;38(2):201-207. doi: 10.1016/j.cvfa.2022.02.002.

Authors

Gerald L Stokka¹, T Robin Falkner²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Animal Science, College of Agriculture, Food Systems and Natural Resources, North Dakota State University, 207C Morrill Hall, NDSU Department 7630, PO Box 6050, Fargo, ND 58108-6050, USA. Electronic address: gerald.stokka@ndsu.edu.
² CattleFlow Consulting, Christiana, TN, USA; Elanco Animal Health, Greenfield, IN, USA.

PMID: 35691623
DOI: 10.1016/j.cvfa.2022.02.002

Abstract

The management and care of livestock can be integrated with a stewardship philosophy and a systems approach to health and wellness. Stewardship is the responsible management of things entrusted to one's care. This philosophic approach means that every resource in livestock production, the land, livestock, and people, must be considered in the care and feeding of livestock and the practice of veterinary medicine. The systems thinking discipline is a set of synergistic investigative skills, used to improve the capability of identifying and understanding complex adaptive systems, predicting their behaviors, and devising modifications to them to produce desired changes.

Keywords: Husbandry; Stewardship; Sustainable; Systems thinking.

Publication types

Review

MeSH terms

Animal Husbandry*
Animals
Humans
Livestock*
Systems Analysis