Light hadron production studies in pp collisions at 0.9 and 7 TeV with the LHCb detector

The LHCb experiment, designed for CP violation and rare decay studies in the heavy quark sector, also provides an important contribution to the study of the light hadron production at LHC energies. Due to its unique pseudorapidity coverage and to the possibility of extending the measurements to low transverse momenta, the LHCb data analyzed so far are already bringing an important insight to baryon transport studies and strangeness production mechanisms in a kinematical range where QCD models diverge. Measurements of the $K_s^0$ production cross section at 0.9 TeV centre-of-mass energy will be presented along with preliminary measurements of $\bar \Lambda/\Lambda$, $\bar \Lambda/K_s^0$ and $\bar p/p$ production ratios at 0.9 and 7 TeV.