Tag Archives: IFPRI

Agriculture / Article / Asia / Biotechnology / Environment / Genetics / ILRI / India / North America / PA / Seeds / USA

‘Nature’ takes a hard look at the ‘messy middle ground’ — the ‘difficult adolescence’ — of GM crops

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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 »

Animal Feeding / Article / Crop residues / Crop-Livestock / ILRI / PA / SLP / Soils

Stuck on stubble: Why ‘no-till agriculture’ is a ‘no can do’ on many small farms

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 Rice residues in southeast Punjab, India, prior to the wheat season (photo on Flickr by Neil Palmer). Why are most poor farmers in developing countries not adopting ‘no-till agriculture’ (also called ‘conservation agriculture’)—an eco-friendly, natural-resource-conserving technology that helps conserve soil fertility by eliminating ploughing and keeping the remains of crops on the ground after harvest? The … Continue reading »

Agri-Health / Animal Diseases / CRP4 / Disease Control / Emerging Diseases / ILRI / MarketOpps / PA / Project / Report / Zoonotic Diseases

New findings of human-animal disease burden carried by world’s poor–IRIN and Reuters

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This transmission electron micrograph (TEM) depicted a number of Nipah virus virions that had been isolated from a patient’s cerebrospinal fluid. Nipah virus, related but not identical to Hendra virus, was initially isolated in 1999 upon examining samples from an outbreak of encephalitis and respiratory illness among adult men in Malaysia and Singapore (image credit: Microbe … Continue reading »

Agriculture / Climate Change / CRP7 / ILRI / LivestockFutures / PA

New tool for determining future weather will help farmers adapt to climate change

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A youth sets out with his weeding tool for his family’s sorghum plot in Katanga Village, near Fakara, in Niger (photo credit: ILRI/Stevie Mann). Philip Thornton, a scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), who leads a research theme of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) on Data and … 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 »

Africa / Agriculture / Food security / Research

Be proud, see far, start small, join hands – A new mantra for food security in Africa?

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Is a new wave of development work towards food security underway in Africa? On the last day of the conference ‘Increasing agricultural productivity and enhancing food security in Africa’, Mafa Chipeta, formerly at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), reminded fellow Africans that solutions to food security on the continent lay not outside, in the … Continue reading »

Africa / Agriculture / Capacity Strengthening / CaSt / Film and video / PA

Investing in people = investing in long-term benefits

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For the November 2011 ‘liveSTOCK Exchange’ event at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Purvi Mehta, head of capacity strengthening, reflects on ILRI’s capacity development activities. ‘I joined ILRI in 2009. Before working at ILRI, I was director of a non-governmental organization in India that worked with the government and over 68,000 farmers in technology … Continue reading »

Agri-Health / Agriculture / Animal Diseases / CRP4 / Epidemiology / Film and video / Food Safety / Health (human) / MarketOpps / PA / Research / West Africa

Veterinary scientists address human illnesses associated with livestock

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For the November 2011 ‘liveSTOCK Exchange’ event at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Delia Grace, a veterinary epidemiologist, reflects on ILRI’s research in agriculture for human health and nutrition. ‘I first came to ILRI in 2002 to study livestock resistance to trypanocide drugs among livestock keepers in West Africa. We wanted to help farmers … Continue reading »

Agri-Health / Animal Diseases / Animal Health / CRP4 / Directorate / Disease Control / Emerging Diseases / Epidemiology / Film and video / Health (human) / ILRI / MarketOpps / PA / Zoonotic Diseases

ILRI scientists put livestock squarely on the (human) health table

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For the November 2011 ‘liveSTOCK Exchange’ event at ILRI, Delia Grace will lead a one-hour session on some of the urgent, complex and fascinating issues at the interface of human and animal health … Watch this 3-minute photofilm with commentary by Delia Grace and small-scale butchers and consumers interviewed along Langata Road in Nairobi, Kenya. Dying … Continue reading »

Africa / Animal Production / Animal Products / East Africa / Ethiopia / ILRI / Livestock / MarketOpps / Markets

Livestock production and marketing in Ethiopia

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Livestock is an important sub-sector within Ethiopia’s economy in terms of its contributions to both agricultural value-added and national GDP. Between 1995/96 and 2005/06, it averaged 24% of agricultural GDP and 11% of national GDP. At the household level, livestock are crucial to the lives of pastoralists, agro-pastoralists, and smallholder farm households; they help to … Continue reading »