Category Archives: Opinion piece

Biotechnology / Environment / Food security / Genetics / Opinion piece / PA / Policy / USA

Greening our meat: A vegan conservationist speaks out, and considerately, on controversial food issues

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Vegan and conservationist Mark Tercek, president and CEO of The Nature Conservancy, the largest environmental non-profit organization in the Americas, had an interesting response this week to a question about eating meat and genetically modified foods—two of the most durable of the hot ‘foodie’ topics of the North, with vegetarian and carnivore consumers, organic and high-tech … Continue reading »

Biotechnology / East Africa / Food security / Intensification / Kenya / Opinion piece / PA / Policy

Kenya’s newly elected government advised to be bullish on agricultural biotechnology and genetically modified foods

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Cynthia Onzere, a staff member in the animal biotechnology laboratories of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), in Nairobi, Kenya (photo credit: ILRI/Evelyn Katingi). ‘A newly elected government provides a country with a rare opportunity for a fresh start—and President Uhuru Kenyatta’s nomination this week of Felix Kiptarus Kosgey to become Kenya’s next Cabinet Secretary … Continue reading »

Agriculture / Animal Feeding / Animal Production / Food security / ILRI / Opinion piece / PA / Research / USA

World Bank president on chicken wings, chicken feed, Super Bowl Sunday (and, ahem, CGIAR)

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Chicken wings cooked with honey and soy (photo on Flickr by TheDeliciousLife). World Bank President Jim Yong Kim became a champion and (sort of) celebrity spokesperson for agricultural-research-for-development this week to the delight of those of us in that (not so celebrity) world. The added bonus for the 700 or so staff of the International … Continue reading »

Africa / Agriculture / Brazil / Food security / Malawi / Opinion piece / PA / Soils

African agriculture: Basket case or bread basket?

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(Illustration on Flickr by Vintaga Posters.) Is Africa an agricultural basket case, or a potential bread basket? Michael Moran, in the GlobalPost, argues the case for the latter. ‘. . . Food security remains a problem in Malawi, as elsewhere in the so-called Guinea Savannah—a huge belt of arable (and largely untilled) land with unpredictable … Continue reading »

Africa / Agri-Health / Animal Diseases / CRP4 / Emerging Diseases / Environment / Epidemiology / Health (human) / ILRI / Kenya / MarketOpps / Opinion piece / PA / RVF / Zoonotic Diseases

Animal-to-human diseases spreading with environmental changes–ILRI’s Delia Grace in The Guardian

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Villagers watch on as a team restrains a small pig for blood sampling in Luang Prabang, Laos (photo credit: ILRI/Kate Blaszak). Delia Grace, an Irish veterinary epidemiologist and public health expert at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), says shifts in forest cover, agricultural practices, mining and reservoirs are thought to be affecting the transmission … Continue reading »

Agriculture / Brazil / China / Event report / India / Opinion piece / PA / Policy

Rio+20 ‘ducked’ political realities: Time for South to show ‘political muscle and imaginative thinking’

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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 »

Climate Change / CRP7 / Environment / Food security / ILRI / LivestockFutures / NRM / Opinion piece / PA

Move our global food systems into a ‘safe space’–Memo to G8 from CGIAR’s Bruce Campbell

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Watch this elegant 6-minute film: How to fed the world by 2050: Actions in a changing climate. Film summary: To achieve food security in a changing climate, the global community must operate within three limits: the quantity of food that can be produced under a given climate; the quantity needed by a growing and changing … Continue reading »

Africa / Agriculture / Books and chapters / Drought / Food security / ILRI / MarketOpps / Markets / Opinion piece / PA

To market, to market–but where is the market? Jimmy Smith and Namanga Ngongi say agricultural markets could be the engines of Africa’s development

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Three diapered goats in the trunk of a car, bought at the local livestock market, await the drive in Mali (photo on Flickr by Romel Jacinto). The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) recently released a book of case studies illustrating ‘high- payoff/low-cost’ initiatives that could help … Continue reading »

Africa / Agriculture / Climate Change / Food security / Opinion piece / PA / Rwanda

Can smallholder farmers take a leading role in addressing the twin challenges of food security and environmental sustainability?

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A farmer in Himachal Pradesh, India. Smallholder farmers can contribute to the search for climate solutions (photo credit: Neil Palmer/CIAT). Paul Kagame, the president of the Republic of Rwanda, says experience from that country shows that smallholder farmers can contribute to the search for climate-smart solutions and climate talks should bring smallholder agriculture into the … Continue reading »

Climate Change / CRP7 / Drought / Drylands / East Africa / Food security / ILRI / Kenya / LivestockFutures / Opinion piece / PA

Are ILRI warnings of continued maize failure in Kenya’s drylands coming true?

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Maize plants in Kenya (photo on Flickr by Vanessa Meadu). ‘There has been a lot of talk, research, and policy documents on climate change and what this portends for the country’s food and even national security. ‘However, not much has been done on the ground to mitigate the effects of climate variability despite the knowledge. … Continue reading »