Published in Scientific Papers. Series D. Animal Science, Vol. LVIII
Written by Elena POPESCU MICLOȘANU, Gabriel Cătălin GÎLEA, Alexandru KELEMEN
In the context of the global demographic boom, we notice a more and more obvious interest of livestock farmers’ both in streamlining animal farming and in the biodiversity of domestic species from which we may obtain a series of food products with high nutritive and organoleptic value. This phenomenon is supported, as far as duck husbandry is concerned, by the numerical evolution of the livestock for these species at global level in the interval 2009-2013. Thus, the latest data available at present (for the year 2013, FAOSTAT 2015) indicate that the livestock being reared in the world exceed 1,335 million ducks. They gain a more and more significant ratio among the domestic poultry livestock reared on a large scale, filling the third position in Europe after chicken and turkey and the second position in Asia. On the Asian continent, which has the longest tradition of consuming food products obtained from ducks, we notice a 13% increase, in Europe the increase is of 4%, in Africa of 5%, in North and South America of 7%, while Oceania is the only region where the livestock decreased by 20%, which is not insignificant at all due to the small livestock that are reared there. In this context, an international level, there is an average increase of 9%. Romania, too, follows this upward trend, the duck livestock increasing by 5% in the above-mentioned interval. An important aspect of duck husbandry is represented by the diversity, quantity and quality of the productions it provides: meat, foie gras (considered a delicacy), eggs, feathers and down of very high quality. The global production of duck meat is about 4.341 million tons, 11.5% of which is produced in European countries. The trade in this poultry totals imports of over 11.3 million ducks, 11.7% of which is performed in Europe. The main problem encountered by livestock farmers in farming certain species of duck is represented by the relatively low performances recorded in the reproduction activity, which decreases the farm’s profitability and makes it difficult to improve the poultry populations.
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