Coastweek and Xinhua have published accounts of a new East African dryland food production initiative. The initiative will work towards securing the agro-pastoral livelihoods of poor livestock keepers in the region.
‘Scientists have launched a new initiative to help boost smallholder farmers’ resilience to drought in the Horn of Africa’s drylands.
‘The new initiative supported by the Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) research program of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) will help pastoralists and smallholder farmers cope with the twin pressures of drought and climate change.
‘The initiative, “Climate change adaptation and mitigation for communities in dryland regions,” is conducted by a group of development partners that include CCAFS research program of CGIAR, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the (UNFAO), Vétérinaires San Frontières, Solidarites and Action Aid among others.
‘A statement from the Nairobi-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) said on Thursday the initiative will work towards securing the agro-pastoral livelihoods of poor livestock keepers in Ethiopia , Kenya and Somalia.
‘“As a key partner in the project, CCAFS will apply lessons from successful past CGIAR research to intensify agricultural production in marginal environments,” said James Kinyangi, a regional program leader of CCAFS, who is based at ILRI.
‘“This should help eastern Africa ’s dryland communities to develop greater resilience to climate change.”
‘Kinyangi said the new regional drylands initiative will help increase crop and livestock productivity in the three countries as well as add value to supply chain processes and help build supportive institutional frameworks for enhancing food production and marketing,” it said. . . .’
Read the whole article at Coastweek: New East African dryland food production initiative, 29 April 2011.
Or read the ILRI News Blog Top Story on this: New initiative to boost food production in eastern Africa’s drylands, 27 April 2011.
ILRI Clippings 
…we cant ask patoralists not to move but we can make them mobile and modern. pastoralists should not wait for crop farmers to harvest before feeding animals with stovers, they themselves should do some strategic plantings. Am presently rounding up an MSc project with Gliricidia sepium legume. I HAVE DEMONSTRATED TO NOMADS THAT THEY COULD CONSCIOUSLY plant these trees around their homesteads and periodically cut and preserve the leaves all year round for livestock feeding. pastoralists again can keep local chickens and continue to dry and store the droppings as nitrogen source to feed animals during dry season.