Veterinary Epidemiology and Zoonosis

PRODUCTION FUNCTIONS

• The relationship between the resources that provide the inputs to production and the goods, and services that comprise the output is called a 'production function'.
• Production function resources may be
  • Natural (examples are land and mineral deposits)
  • Man-made (examples are buildings and machinery)
• Frequently, these undergo physical transformation (for example, iron ore into steel, animal feed into body protein ) or else facilitate a physical transformation process (for example, manpower and managerial expertise).
• Empirical evidence shows that this relationship is typically non-linear because certain inputs are typically fixed, and so beyond a certain point an increase in variable input is associated with a less than proportionate increase in output-the “law of diminishing returns”.

Disease is an economic process

• Livestock production is a specific example of a physical transformation process.
• Disease impairs this process ( i.e., reduces output ) and sometimes results in death.
• Thus, there is a loss of efficiency which poses both technical and economic problems
• If restoration of technical efficiency is the goal, the corresponding economic objective is to find the least-cost method to restore health and productivity.