The cost of preparing the world’s agriculture to deal with increasing global temperatures will be $7 billion annually, a senior climate change researcher said this week at an African conference designed to push farming up the climate change agenda. Africa, the world’s poorest continent that is forecast to be the most affected by global warming, … Continue reading
Author Archives: Peter Ballantyne (ILRI)
Africa / Animal Health / East Africa / Kenya / Pastoralism / Tanzania
Improving animal health in East Africa
In this podcast from the London International Development Centre, four vets describe the challenges affecting livestock within pastoralist communities in East Africa and explain an exciting project to monitor disease by using mobile phones. Dr Ezra Saitoti and Dr Paul Chacha, both field vets for the charity Vetaid, discuss how this innovative technology will help … Continue reading
Africa / Agriculture / Climate Change / East Africa / Food Security / ILRI
Climate models paint bleak picture for East Africa
Climate change is expected to bring greater extremes in weather conditions, but climate models disagree about which problems – droughts, flooding, temperature increases – are most likely in much of northern, central and western Africa. In east Africa, however, the models largely agree: dry areas will suffer more prolonged droughts and wet areas will see … Continue reading
Volunteer brings computer skills to Africa
In the fall of 2009, a pair of Kenyan interns at the Nairobi-based International Livestock Research Institute were trying to post an interview with an Australian member of parliament on the organization’s blog. They hoped to put the interview online, as the organization was trying to secure Australian funds to help finance its work. Nancy … Continue reading
Asia / Biodiversity / Climate Change / Food Security / India / South Asia
Food Security, biodiversity and climate change
GENE CAMPAIGN and Action Aid organized a seminal workshop at New Delhi last week (April23/24) to deliberate on this issue. In her lead presentation, Suman Sahai made the point that climate change will bring turbulence in ALL production systems: no exclusions will be pronounced! The greater the genetic variety, the better the coping strategy will … Continue reading
Livestock research for women
If you educate a whole family it follows that a nation will be educated; women bare, sucker and most often are the prime educators of children. Many women, in the developing world, would increase their propensity to educate if they had greater access to livestock ownership and all the benefits it would inevitably produce. Recently … Continue reading
Experts gather in Nairobi to plan campaign on climate threat to global hunger and poverty
Leading agriculture and climate scientists, policymakers, farmers, and development experts from around the world will gather in Nairobi on May 4 to focus on the threat of climate change to the global food supply. If not dealt with, climate change could imperil efforts to reduce poverty and hunger and threaten the stability of entire nations … Continue reading
Insurance, grasslands: What could they have in common?
Insurance is about protection against loss — and so, in many ways, is conservation. The similarities between these two industries mean both could gain from a closer relationship. The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) recently announced the trial of an innovative insurance scheme for traditional herders in northern Kenya. But it has been almost impossible … Continue reading
Responding to pandemic threats
This week delegates gather for the International Ministerial Conference on Animal and Pandemic Influenza in Hanoi, Vietnam. The past year has seen the H1N1 (swine flu) pandemic sweep the world and avian influenza remains endemic in a number of countries, particularly in Asia. Fortunately neither has resulted in the ‘big one’: a pandemic on a … Continue reading
Animals + humans = one health
Under the slogan ‘animals + humans = one health’, the European Commission brings together information on the EU Animal Health Strategy for 2007–13 and the third edition of the EU Veterinary Week which runs from 14 to 20 June 2010. The 2007–13 strategy is based on the principle that “prevention is better than cure”. The … Continue reading
ILRI Clippings 