USAID’s PREDICT project, part of the Emerging Pandemic Threats program, seeks to proactively identify disease-causing organisms in wildlife before they spread to humans. Local capacity is being established and enhanced in global geographic hotspots which have high potential for disease transmission among animals and humans. Currently, about 24 countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia … Continue reading
Author Archives: Peter Ballantyne (ILRI)
International Symposium on Sustainable Animal Production in the Tropics–ILRI papers
The November 2010 issue of Advances in Animal Biosciences contains papers from the ‘International Symposium on Sustainable Animal Production in the Tropics: Farming in a Changing World,’ held in Guadeloupe 15-18 November 2010. Five papers are included from ILRI authors: Mario Herrero and Philip K. Thornton: Mixed crop livestock systems in the developing world: present … Continue reading
Africa / Animal Feeding / Animal Production / Geodata / GIS / Knowledge and Information / Livestock / South Africa / Southern Africa / Wildlife
South Africa: Satellite can help improve veld production estimates
Satellite images could soon be used in South Africa to quantify veld production, estimate livestock carrying capacity and help farmers plan fodder flow, reports Roelof Bezuidenhout. Read more … (Meat Trade News) Continue reading
More action to safeguard animal genetic diversity
A growing number of countries are taking steps to catalogue, conserve and better manage the genetic diversity of livestock in order to help safeguard the resilience of the world’s food production systems, says an informal survey released recently by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Read more … (Stackyard.com) Continue reading
Animal Production / Asia / Goats / India / Livestock / Small Ruminants / South Asia
India’s goat gamble
It has been a slow and steady shift over decades. Forced by declining returns from farming in ecologically fragile areas, small farmers have been taking to goat rearing. Today, goats ensure income to five million households in India. It is now bonanza time, with demand for goat meat projected to shoot up. India will have … Continue reading
Climate, food security, and growth: Ethiopia’s complex relationship with livestock
In a recent report, New York-based public policy action tank Brighter Green questions whether Ethiopia is not in fact constraining its chances of coping with expected increases in drought and erratic weather as a result of global warming by expanding its livestock population and intensive animal-agriculture sector. Brighter Green’s research examines whether Ethiopia can industrialize … Continue reading
Can spicing up livestock help save the world’s climate?
The greenhouse gases that come from livestock are silent but deadly. Conventional wisdom, originating in a 2006 UN Food and Agriculture Organization report, says that livestock are responsible for 18 percent of global emissions, though a 2009 article by Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang in World Watch magazine puts the number as high as 51 … Continue reading
Africa / Agriculture / Animal Products / East Africa / Environment / Kenya
Biogas from cow dung: A good alternative?
With the rising fuel costs, farmers in Kenya have come up with ways of generating power locally and cheaply. Biogas is increasing becoming a viable alternative to many farmers and especially those in high potential Central Highlands where dairying is common. Read more … (Kenya Agriculture Stories) Continue reading
Africa / Animal Production / Climate Change / Goats / Livestock / Mozambique / Small Ruminants / Southern Africa
Mozambique adapting to climate change with goats
People in the floodplains of Mozambique’s Zambezi Valley have always relied on the rains October and November so they could sow their seeds for a good harvest in the New Year. But, there are droughts and the rains are erratic, often coming very late and falling so heavily that everything is washed away. Crops fail, … Continue reading
Africa / Animal Products / Dairying / East Africa / Kenya / Markets
Why do dairy farmers ‘hawk’ milk through informal channels?
In Kenya, low prices offered by the formal milk marketing channels are forcing farmers countrywide to seek alternatives to get better deals. Milk hawkers have continued to thrive even as restrictions are put on their way as concerns heighten over hygiene standards. Every morning more than 40,000 milk hawkers are out on their bicycles, motorcycles … Continue reading
ILRI Clippings 