An Indian woman and cow on the steps of a temple (photo on Flickr by Marsh Gardiner, earth2marsh). As reported in the New York Times this week, a fundamental, if largely unspoken, cultural shift is occurring in India, where more and more Hindus, many of whom were vegetarian, as well as people rising out of … Continue reading »
Fulani boy in Niger herds his family’s animals (photo credit: ILRI/Stevie Mann). Mobility to unlock scattered food, feed, water and other scarce and scattered essential resources is a human strategy as old as humankind itself—and one that remains key for pastoral livestock herders the world over. As the world warms and its natural resources become ever scarcer, it would … Continue reading »
Cover of a special issue of ‘Nature’ on GMOs, 2 May 2013. The leading British science journal Nature has published a special issue on GM crops: Promise and reality (2 May 2013). This hub of updated science-based information on GM crops includes feature news stories, commentaries, a podcast and more. ‘Foreign genes were successfully introduced into … Continue reading »
Buffalo in a village homestead in the Himalayan foothills of northern India (photo credit: ILRI/Susan MacMillan). ‘Alas for the sacred cow: Beef exports from India are expected to surge 30 per cent this year, giving this country a quarter of the world market. ‘This is a good-news story in a lurching economy. Livestock industries, from eggs … Continue reading »
Girdhai Lal Jat herds his cattle through the village of Nagar, in Tonk District, Rajasthan, India, to water (photo credit: ILRI/Stevie Mann). ‘At the United Nations climate talks in Doha this week, India opposed any move that would require developing countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. ‘With an estimated 485 million cattle, goat, … Continue reading »
ILRI’s Sapna Jarial translates a speech delivered by a village council president on field visit in Haryana, India, on 4 Nov 2012, made by ILRI management and board (photo credit: ILRI/Nils Teufel). Ilse Köhler-Rollefson, a German livestock researcher and activist ‘for socially responsible and ecologically sustainable livestock development’, asks in a recent blog post, ‘Whose … Continue reading »
On 4 Nov 2012, an ILRI delegation of 28 visited the village of Araipura, in the Karnal District in the Indian state of Haryana, where they held discussions with dairy farm families. The ILRI management team and board of trustees also visited the National Dairy Research Institute. (Photo credit: ILRI) ‘Operation Flood in Gujarat is … Continue reading »
Innovation platforms are a complex and some would say a not-so-straightforward approach. Nevertheless, ILRI, other CGIAR centers and other partners are using this approach in various projects such as the Nile Basin Development Challenge, IMGoats and the recently-completed Fodder Adoption and Fodder Innovation projects. What are innovation platforms exactly? This poster gives some ideas. … Continue reading »
Zoonotic emerging infectious disease events (non-wild hosts). Published In report to DFID by Delia Grace et al.: Mapping of Poverty and Likely Zoonoses Hotspots, ILRI, 2012 (map credit: ILRI/Delia Grace). Natasha Gilbert reports today in Nature on the ‘Cost of human-animal disease greatest for world’s poor’, noting that ‘the United States and western Europe are … Continue reading »
Happy dragon in Fengdu, China (photo on Flickr by Major Clanger). SciDevNet’s David Dickson argues in an opinion piece last week that the outcomes of the June Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development illustrate that leadership from developing countries will be key to global sustainable development. Dickson says that the result of Rio-20 was ‘the … Continue reading »
