Tag Archives: PNAS

Africa / Agriculture / Asia / Central America / Climate Change / CRP7 / Environment / Farming Systems / ILRI / Livestock Systems / LivestockFutures / PLE / Research

Livestock and global change: Livestock live talk at ILRI on 28 November 2012

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Globally, the demand for meat products is growing at 1.8% per year due to increasing populations, economic growth and rapid urbanization. Agropastoral and pastoral systems cover 45% of the earth’s usable surface and supply 9% of global meat production, while mixed crop-livestock farming systems produce 54% of the total meat and 90% of the milk … Continue reading »

Article / Cattle / Dairying / North Africa / PA

Got Milk? Dairy found essential to prehistoric development in Africa–new research

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Petroglyphs and pictographs in the Jebel Acacus, Libyan Sahara (photo on Flickr by Carsten ten Brink / 10b travelling). This month’s publication of a scientific article on new evidence of livestock herding in prehistoric Africa is stirring interest. ScienceDaily, for example, reports the following: Chemical analysis of pottery reveals first dairying in Saharan Africa nearly 7,000 years … Continue reading »

Africa / Animal Diseases / Article / Biotech / Biotechnology / Cattle / Disease Control / Film and video / Genetics / ILRI / PA / Zoonotic Diseases

Livestock genes identified to unlock protection from animal plagues

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West Africa’s ancient (humpless) N’Dama cattle (white) are genetically resistant to the disease trypanosomosis while East Africa’s Improved Boran (humped) cattle are susceptible to this tsetse-transmitted disease (photo credit ILRI/Elsworth). Xinhuanet, the Chinese Xinhua News Agency online service, reports on an international research team that used a new combination of approaches to find two genes … Continue reading »

Africa / Agri-Health / Animal Diseases / Article / Biotech / Cattle / CRP4 / Disease Control / Genetics / Health (human) / ILRI / Indigenous Breeds / PA

An African cattle disease, disease-resistant cow and disease control solution

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The tsetse fly, which spreads the livestock disease trypanosomosis (photo credit: ILRI/Elsworth). Aid Netherlands has picked up news of a paper published last month in a leading scientific journal about a breakthrough in determining the genes responsible for controlling a tsetse fly-transmitted disease of livestock that has devastated Africa, and held back farming on the … Continue reading »

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 / 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 »

Agriculture / CRP5 / Farming Systems / Intensification / Livelihoods / NRM / PA

Intensify–not expand–tropical croplands where you can, new study recommends

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A small-scale mixed crop-and-livestock farmer in Oyo State, Nigeria (photo credit: ILRI/Mann). From the University of Minnesota come this news yesterday of a new scientific paper showing the environmental importance of intensifying rather than expanding tropical farmlands to feed the world’s growing human populations and to provide poor people with livelihoods. ‘According to a study … Continue reading »

Animal Feeding / Research / SLP

Scientists warn of livestock greenhouse gas boom

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Soaring international production of livestock could release enough carbon into the atmosphere by 2050 to single-handedly exceed ‘safe’ levels of climate change, says a study. Scientists combined figures for livestock production in 2000 with Food and Agriculture Organization projections for population growth and meat consumption by 2050. They found that the livestock sector’s emissions alone … Continue reading »

Environment / LivestockFutures / PA / PLE

Just who should reduce their consumption of meat, milk and eggs to reduce livestock greenhouse gas emissions?

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Milk from a dairy cow kept by a household in the highland farming community of Embu, Kenya, generates a regular income that helps this family pay for their children’s school fees (photo by CGIAR/Mann). Agricultural systems analyst Mario Herrero, of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), takes issue this week with a paper published 4 … Continue reading »