Vets Might Fly

A few months of married bliss, a lovers' nest in Darrowby and the wonders of home cooking are rudely interrupted for James Herriot by the Second World War. James Herriot's fifth volume of memoirs relocates him to a training camp somewhere in England. And in between square pounding and digging for victory, he dreams of the people and livestock he left behind him. 'There are funny cases, sad cases, farm animals and pets, downright farmers, ladies of refinement, hard-bitten NCOs and of course, the immortal Siegfried and Tristan.

Livestock economics, or the application of economic methods to optimising the decisions made by livestock producers, grew to prominence around the turn of the 20th century. It focused on maximising the yield of livestocks while maintaining a good ecosystem. Throughout the last century, the discipline expanded and the current scope of the discipline is much broader. Livestock economics today includes a variety of applied areas, having considerable overlap with conventional economics. It combines the technical aspects of livestock production with the business aspects of management, marketing and finance.