Adaptation of Plants and Animals 
OMAR DRAZ 
Desert Range Development Project, Desert In- 
stitute, Mataria, Egypt 
The growing world population, together with the need to raise 
the standard of living for millions of people who suffer hunger or 
malnutrition, makes the increase in world food production an 
urgent and vital requirement. 
The Food and Agricultural Organization annual reports show 
that shortages in animal products have always been more evident 
than those of other food materials (6). It 1s quite obvious that 
control of livestock diseases and parasites, systematic animal 
breeding programs, and improved agricultural methods, together 
with building of more irrigation projects, would augment animal 
production. Producing abundant cheap animal feed, however, 
will always remain the main factor in materially increasing animal 
production. This was proved on a country wide basis in New Zea- 
land. After 24 years of work it was found that raising the plane 
of nutrition among the animal population caused more production 
in annual butter fat per cow than selection, grading up of herds, 
or elimination of poor producers (10). Better use of our arid and 
semi-arid lands that cover millions of acres could help in provid- 
ing this essential cheap animal feed. 
Continuous overstocking of arid or semi-arid zones has greatly 
reduced their productivity. Through ages of misuse, man has in 
the most unwise way exploited millions of acres by extensive and 
uncontrolled grazing. This has caused denudation of plant cover, 
which, hand in hand with erosion, produced aridity and in many 
cases man-made deserts. 
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