Monthly Archives: May 2011

Africa / Animal Diseases / Biotech / Biotechnology / Cattle / Film and video / ILRI / Indigenous Breeds / Kenya / PA / Research / UK / Zoonotic Diseases

‘New science’ is ‘networked science’: The data-crunching workflows and pipelines behind a recent gene discovery

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The single-celled parasite Trypanosoma brucei (appearing in blue), which causes sleeping sickness in humans and trypanosomiasis in livestock, amongst the red blood cells of its mammalian host (photo credit: Parasite Museum website). Having been domesticated in Africa some 8,000 or more years ago, the N’Dama, the most ancient of African cattle breeds, has had time to … Continue reading »

Africa / North Africa / PA

G-8 leaders throw weight, and promised funds, behind Arab and Africa ‘Springs’

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Egyptian women protesting in Tahrir Square (photo credit: Joseph Hill, nebedaay’s Flickr photostream). The UPI reports that ‘the world’s leading economic powers closed their G-8 summit in Deauville, France, this Friday [27 May 2011]  by pledging aid to new democracies in the Arab world and Africa. The Group of Eight—the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, … Continue reading »

Agriculture / Biodiversity / Indigenous Breeds / PA / Seeds

‘Farms are not museums’–Cary Fowler

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In the forage genebank on the Addis Ababa campus of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust (left), and Jean Hanson (middle), a geneticist who headed ILRI forage diversity work for two decades and now consults for ILRI, and a member of ILRI’s forage diversity team … Continue reading »

Africa / Animal Products / Dairying / East Africa / ILRI / Kenya / Livestock / MarketOpps / Markets / Rwanda / Uganda

Dairy farming in East Africa: Key economic performance indicators

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This brief from the East Africa Dairy Development Project highlights key results of a baseline survey of the economic performance analysis of dairy farms in project sites in Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda. The focus is on production and marketing aspects to establish a benchmark against which future economic performances of the project beneficiaries will be … Continue reading »

Africa / Agriculture / Asia / Caribbean / Latin America / PA / USA

‘Helping farmers become self-sufficient is one of the most effective ways to reduce poverty and hunger’–Gates and Shah

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Fatima Kagenda, 53-year-old maize, potato and cassava farmer, as well as dressmaker and church treasurer, in the village of Khulungira, in central  Malawi, with hoe, crutches and knitting (photo credit: ILRI/CGIAR/Mann). The international development website Devex reports this week that billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates and Rajiv Shah, administrator of the United States Agency for International … Continue reading »

Africa / Agriculture / Animal Breeding / Dairying / East Africa / ILRI / Kenya / MarketOpps / Rwanda / Uganda

Constraints to the use of artificial insemination services for dairying in East Africa

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This brief from the East Africa Dairy Development Project highlights key results of a baseline survey to analyze the level of preference for and use of artificial insemination (AI) in different project sites, and identifying constraints or problems hindering the optimal use of the service and possible solutions. Download the paper The East Africa Dairy … Continue reading »

Africa / Animal Diseases / Biotech / Biotechnology / Cattle / Disease Control / East Africa / Epidemiology / ILRI / Kenya / PA / Pastoralism / Somalia / Sudan / Uganda / Vaccines

Beating plague: Rinderpest is the second disease to be eradicated from the earth

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ILRI veterinary epidemiologist Jeff Mariner presenting his research at a meeting of the World Animal Health Organisation (OIE) (photo credit: OIE). A disease that has devastated the planet for millennia has been eradicated. An international campaign has wiped the cattle plague rinderpest off the face of the earth. ‘For centuries, a disease has ravaged the … Continue reading »

Africa / Animal Feeding / Cattle / East Africa / ILRI / Kenya / MarketOpps / Rwanda / Uganda

East Africa dairy development: Animal feeds and feeding practices

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This brief from the East Africa Dairy Development Project highlights key results of a baseline survey that was carried out to provide information on cattle production systems and current feeding practices in smallholder households in selected sites in Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda. Download the paper The East Africa Dairy Development (EADD) project is implemented by … Continue reading »

Africa / Agriculture / Animal Diseases / Animal Health / Animal Products / Dairying / East Africa / ILRI / Kenya / Livestock / MarketOpps / Rwanda / Uganda

Livestock disease challenges and gaps in the delivery of animal health services in East Africa

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This brief from the East Africa Dairy Development Project highlights key results of a baseline survey to assess gaps in the delivery of animal health services in Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda. Specifically, the survey assessed the main animal health problems; preventive and curative measures used to control animal diseases; livestock farmers’ access to veterinary and … Continue reading »

Africa / Animal Diseases / Biodiversity / Biotech / Cattle / Disease Control / Genetics / ILRI / Indigenous Breeds / PA

Study finds gene clues to African cattle disease

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Reuters reports the following yesterday. ‘Scientists studying the tsetse fly-borne disease “sleeping sickness” and a devastating version found in cattle say they have found two genes that may in future help rescue the livelihoods of millions of farmers in Africa. ‘In a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) journal on … Continue reading »