Category Archives: Consumption

Animal Production / Books and chapters / Consumption / Food security / Health (human) / Livelihoods / PA / Pro-Poor Livestock / Research / Zoonotic Diseases

New FAO book spells out rationale, priorities for investing in livestock development to reduce poverty

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A new FAO study reports that more than 85 per cent of poor livestock keepers in sub-Saharan Africa live in extreme poverty; here, at a Toureg encampment near Fakara, in Niger, a boy herds a prized animal, and asset, of his family (photo credit: ILRI/Stevie Mann). A new book on the intersection of poverty reduction … Continue reading »

Africa / Agri-Health / Asia / Consumption / CRP4 / Film and video / Food Safety / ILRI / MarketOpps / Nutrition (human) / PA / Project

Safe food, fair food: Making milk and meat safe and affordable for the world’s poor

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Demand for milk and meat continues to rise in developing countries (photo credit: ILRI/Stevie Mann). The New Agriculturist recently reported on a Safe Food, Fair Food Project led by scientists at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). ‘Rising demand for livestock products is providing opportunities to improve the livelihoods of smallscale livestock farmers across Africa. … Continue reading »

Animal Production / Consumption / CRP2 / Food Safety / Food security / ILRI / Innovation Systems / Intensification / Livelihoods / Livestock / MarketOpps / Markets / Policy / Report / Research / Trade / Value Chains

Livestock market opportunities for the poor: Smallholders can be competitive

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For the November 2011 ‘liveSTOCK Exchange’ event at ILRI, Steve Staal, Derek Baker, Karl Rich, Ayele Gelan, Acho Okike, Delia Grace, Mohammad Jabbar, Mohamadou Fadiga, Ranjitha Puskur, Lucy Lapar, Berhanu Gebremedhin, Amos Omore and Francis Wanyoike prepared a series of issue briefs on smallholder livestock producers, consumers, and development … View a presentation to the … Continue reading »

Africa / Agriculture / Asia / Caribbean / Climate Change / Consumption / Environment / Food security / Latin America / Markets / PA

Lester Brown on ‘the new geopolitics of food’

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Youth in window of a poor farm household in Milange, located in Zambezia, the most populous province of Mozambique (photo credit: ILRI/Mann). Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, writes in the May/June issue of Foreign Policy on ‘The New Geopolitics of Food: From the Middle East to Madagascar, high prices are spawning land grabs … Continue reading »

Agriculture / Brazil / China / Consumption / Egypt / Food security / India / Middle East / PA / Philippines / Vietnam

The great global food crunch: Was scarce food the tinderbox for Middle East turmoil?

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Ancient Egyptian cow relief (photo credit: ILRI/Elsworth). The Washington Post’s op-ed columnist Robert J. Samuelson argued yesterday that the turmoil in the Middle East is related to a global food squeeze. ‘Here’s a question about the Mideast turmoil for future historians: How much did food inflation contribute? We know some basic facts. Middle East countries … Continue reading »

Consumption / ECF / Food security / Mozambique / PA / Research

Feeding the world: ‘Let them eat [CGIAR] research’ – Economist

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Customers rush to buy bread, a staple in high demand in Mozambique, after it arrives at a bakery in the south of the country as wheat ran short and food prices rose in 2008 (photo credit: ILRI/Mann). A leader for a special report on feeding the world’s growing population, published in the Economist recently (24 February … Continue reading »

Animal Production / Animal Products / Consumption / Environment / PA

Scientists grow ‘cultured’ meat in labs

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Meat sellers in Maputo’s traditional market: Will ‘cultured’ meat grown in vats ever replace meat grown on the hoof in developing countries? (photo credit: ILRI/Mann). ‘In a small laboratory on an upper floor of the basic science building at the Medical University of South Carolina, Vladimir Mironov, M.D., Ph.D., has been working for a decade … Continue reading »

Animal Production / Consumption / Environment / Livestock Systems / PA

Is eating meat actually good for the planet?

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A young girl carries a slab of beef amongst traders in Goro town, Ethiopia, on market day. (Photo credit: ILRI/Mann) ‘The modest proposal may sound heretical to many eco-conscious eaters, but eating meat may actually be good for the planet after all.  In his new book, Meat: A Benign Extravagance, Simon Fairlie aims to debunk … Continue reading »

Animal Production / Consumption / Goats / Markets / North America / PA / Small Ruminants

Ontario: Where goat is hot

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Goat for sale in a market in Nigeria (photo by ILRI/Mann). ‘. . . In Ontario agriculture, there’s no question: 2010 is the Year of the Goat. ‘Ontario farmers are catching up with the rest of the world by discovering the virtues of goats as livestock. The province has long had a strong livestock sector, … Continue reading »

Agriculture / Consumption / North America / PA / Research / USA

‘Food miles’ can be ‘false miles’ when total energy expenditures are taken into account

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American science and history writer Stephen Budiansky published a tonic op-ed in the New York Times last week on the dangers of simplifying such inherently complex issues as total energy expenditures in the production, transportation and marketing of food. As his article tellingly points out (see excerpts below), making arbitrary rules about our food systems, … Continue reading »