Expanding urbanization and increasing per capita income continuously push the demand for protein-rich livestock and poultry products. As a result, although there has been a tremendous increase in livestock and poultry output in the recent past, this glowing trend is not without any issues. Economic losses arising from animal diseases continue to be a major concern. Hence, diseases are less tolerated by the farmers and entrepreneurs as they dwindle the attainable farm output and income. Animal diseases also have serious negative effects on farm-related industries like feed manufacturing firms and product processing businesses, besides causing a severe setback in export markets.

Unfortunately, there are no adequate reading materials available on the economics of animal diseases and their control. Although the developed countries had started working in the field of animal health economics as early as 1970s, developing countries like India lagged behind and started working in this field only in 1990s. This book has been written with the basic purpose of documenting the principles and methods of animal health economics, relatively a newer discipline for the country, to propagate the knowledge of the concepts and procedures in measuring animal disease frequencies, disease loss estimation methods, and economic principles underlying disease control to the students of veterinary and animal sciences, practicing veterinarians, academicians, research workers, planners and administrators in the field of livestock and poultry production.

The purpose of this book is not to make a veterinarian an economist, but to make him / her understand the basic principles of economics as applied to veterinary epidemiology, disease loss estimation, and disease control and prevention. Hence, this book, the first of its kind in India, is expected to be of help to all those concerned about growth of livestock and poultry subsectors.

M.Thirunavukkarasu is the former Professor and Head, Dept. of Livestock Business Management, Madras Veterinary College, Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University (TANUVAS), Chennai, Tamil Nadu (India). He graduated from Madras Veterinary College in the year 1986, did his post-graduation in Agricultural Economics at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (1987 - 90), Coimbatore and doctorate in Animal Husbandry Economics (1993 - 96) at TANUVAS, Chennai. He joined the TANUVAS, Chennai in 1989 as Assistant Professor and was promoted as Associate Professor in 1997. He was elevated as the Professor of Animal Husbandry Statistics and Computer Applications in 2000. Considering his eminent achievements in education, research, extension, administration and institution building, he was then raised up as the Professor (Higher Grade) in 2011. His laudable accomplishments have also enabled him to hold the coveted posts of the Controller of Examinations, TANUVAS during 2012 – 15 and the Dean, Veterinary College and Research Institute, Tirunelveli (2016 - 18), besides holding the post of the Registrar, TANUVAS for a brief period from April to August, 2018.

He underwent advanced training programmes on Livestock Economics and Planning, and Quantitative Methods in Livestock Health and Production at the University of Reading, UK, in 1998 and training on Instructional Technology – eLearning guidelines, standards and protocols at Michigan State University, USA in 2009. He has also visited Uganda and Malawi for research and consultancy works. He has published 117 research papers in International and National journals, organised 3 International Conferences, presented more than 65 research papers (including 5 lead / invited papers) in International and National Conferences / Seminars, edited 11 books and authored 19 books, teaching manuals and booklets. He has been bestowed with 20 awards including the Best PG Student Award, Best Teacher Award, Best Scientist Award and Lifetime Achievement Award in his professional career spanning more than 33 years. He has implemented 21 Research Projects funded by National and International agencies including ICAR, NAIP, FAO, USDA, GoI, GoTN, AWBI, etc. He has started four new post graduate programmes – MVSc, MFSc and MSc in Biostatistics (2011-12) and PG Diploma in Animal Health Economics (2019-20). He has contributed significantly in the areas of Livestock Economics, Animal Health Economics, Bio-statistics, IT Applications in Animal Sciences and Development of e-Courses for Veterinary Education.

1. Diseases in Livestock and Poultry – An Economic Insight
2. Basic Statistics for Animal Health Studies
3. Measures of Central Tendency and Variability for Animal Health Studies
4. Sampling Methods for Animal Disease Surveys
5. Hypothesis Testing in Animal Health Studies
6. Design of Experiments for Animal Health Studies
7. Epidemiological Approaches to Animal Disease Investigation
8. Measuring Animal Disease Frequencies
9. Economic Impacts of Animal Diseases
10. Economic Methods of Estimating Disease Losses
11. Regression Techniques for Assessing Factors Influencing Disease Frequencies and Losses
12. Programming Techniques for Animal Health Economics
13. Economics of Animal Disease Control
14. Animal Disease Information System