The rapid growth in consumer demand for livestock offers an opportunity to reduce poverty among smallholder livestock farmers in the developing world. These farmers' opportunity may be threatened, however, by competition from larger-scale farms. These studies that were conducted in two phases  was a joint collaboration between LEAD, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and national research institutions  in Brazil, India, the Philippines, and Thailand.

These studies address issues related to industrialized livestock production focused on four fast-growing developing countries Brazil, Thailand, India, and Philippines were intended to improve the understanding of:

• how international and domestic forces influence the scale of operations in livestock production and marketing in developing countries
• how these forces influence the attainment of Social, Environmental and Health (SHE) objectives in the sector, both directly and through impacts on scale of operations