**1. Background**

Globally, the livestock sector is a principal source of food and employment. It is one of the fastest-growing agricultural sub-sectors, which provides livelihoods for ~1.3 billion people and accounts for ~40% of the global agricultural gross domestic product (AGDP) [1]. The livestock sector is expected to become even more crucial in the future, particularly in light of a rising human population, which is estimated to become ~9.7 billion in 2050 [2]. In this respect, the livestock sector will play a vital role in fulfilling a growing demand for animal-derived foods [3], while ensuring future global food security [4].

**Citation:** Khanal, P.; Dhakal, R.; Khanal, T.; Pandey, D.; Devkota, N.R.; Nielsen, M.O. Sustainable Livestock Production in Nepal: A Focus on Animal Nutrition Strategies. *Agriculture* **2022**, *12*, 679. https:// doi.org/10.3390/agriculture12050679

Academic Editors: Lubomira Gresakova and Emilio Sabia

Received: 22 February 2022 Accepted: 3 May 2022 Published: 10 May 2022

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**Copyright:** © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

The livestock sector and the production of animal-derived foods are, however, also significant contributors to climate change. The livestock sector alone represents about ~18% of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the world [5]. There is an unfortunate association between the fermentation of feeds in the forestomach of ruminant animals and the enteric formation of the potent GHG, methane [6]. Growing concerns on the impacts of the livestock sector on environmental health have posed severe challenges to this sector, and there is increasing pressure for GHG mitigation from environmentalists, consumers, and policymakers, both locally and globally [7]. Thus, it is a primary issue for the livestock sector today to develop sustainable production systems, where animal-derived food can be produced with increased efficiency to accommodate growing demands from an increased human population, at the same time as impacts on the environment need to be decreased [8].

In the developing world, including Nepal and other Asian regions, livestock is a primary source of major dietary nutrients and a critical component of small-scale crop– livestock mixed farming systems [9]. The demand for livestock products is projected to increase in developing regions due to a rise in urbanization and income levels [10]. In addition, developing countries are predicted to contribute a significant part (up to 97%) of the global population rise [11], and the population of the developing world alone will reach 7.6 billion by 2050 [12]. Today, the livestock sectors in developing nations are facing two major challenges. Firstly, low animal productivity remains a significant problem, although some tendencies are seen towards scaling up production levels, mainly for monogastrics [13,14]. Secondly, livestock in developing nations accounts for 50–65% of the global GHG emissions from the livestock sector [10], thus contributing to climate change and global warming. However, there are a relatively limited number of studies evaluating the status of animal production in the developing world, particularly in very low-income countries, which limits our insight into the necessary measures to expand productivity at a lower environmental cost in the future. In this context, this paper aims to evaluate the current status of livestock production in Nepal to identify potential strategies that could be employed in the future to establish a more sustainable development of the livestock production systems, whilst considering the prevailing socio-economic conditions. We believe that the issues put forward here would also be relevant for other low-income countries with similar agro-climatic situations, which face a similar challenge with respect to the sustainable development of livestock production in the future.
