The dairy sector accounts for around four percent of all global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) according to a new FAO report. This figure includes both emissions associated with the production, processing and transportation of milk products as well as emissions related to meat produced from animals originating from the dairy system. Read more . … Continue reading
Author Archives: Peter Ballantyne (ILRI)
Ministerial conference to discuss animal and pandemic influenza
A ministerial conference to marshal international cooperation against the advance of new infectious diseases opens this month in Hanoi, drawing on experience gained in responses to pandemic A/H1N1 influenza and H5N1 avian influenza. The conference will set the scene for a worldwide effort, over the next 20 years, for tackling threats to people’s health that … Continue reading
Livestock goods and bads: ILRI annual meeting kicks off in Addis Ababa
On 15 April, ILRI staff gathered in Addis Ababa for their annual meeting. With more than 180 participants, the normally quiet campus is buzzing. More than 40 posters have been prepared for the meeting, showcasing the many different aspects of ILRI work. View them on slideshare. We have also started to upload all the presentations … Continue reading
Climate change: The animal connection
In the April 2010 issue of Veterinary Practice, Andrew Knight argues that “reducing the production of meat could help solve one of the world’s major problems.” Read more … (Veterinary Practice) Continue reading
Asia / China / Climate Change / Livestock
Cows absolved of causing global warming with nitrous oxide
Livestock could actually be good for the environment according to a new study that found grazing cows or sheep can cut emissions of a powerful greenhouse gas. Dr Butterbach-Bahl said the study overturned assumptions about grazing goats and cattle. “It’s been generally assumed that if you increase livestock numbers you get a rise in emissions … Continue reading
Africa / Animal Health / Disease Control / East Africa / Livestock / Uganda / Vaccines
Makerere to produce vaccines and drugs for livestock
Makerere University is to start an animal institute which will produce vaccines and drugs for livestock and wild animals. The Africa Institute for Strategic Animal Resource Services will also train youth in livestock management. It will promote value addition and develop high market value products from cattle, goats, sheep, pigs and rabbits. to support the … Continue reading
Good practices for biosecurity in the pig sector
Animal diseases that are known to spread primarily through human activities can be prevented and controlled through the application of biosecurity measures along the production and marketing chain, together with increased awareness and education. It is this notion that makes biosecurity so critically important in the prevention, control and elimination of transboundary animal diseases (TADs), … Continue reading
New Zealand optimistic after agricultural greenhouse gases meeting
The Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases’ inaugural meeting went well, the Government says. The meeting of senior officials and scientists from the alliance’s 29 member countries, with China, Brazil and Korea attending as observers, was largely about giving organisational form to the political decision in Copenhagen last December to launch a collaborative effort … Continue reading
Grazing cattle reduce some greenhouse gases
A new report published in Nature addresses the impact of nitrous oxide, or N2O, which is about 300 times as powerful as CO2 at trapping heat in the atmosphere. But the Nature study throws an unexpected twist into the N2O story. Biologists had long assumed that the farming of cattle and other livestock was part … Continue reading
Women in agriculture: Land O’Lakes looks at the opportunities
There is a joke circulating among development agencies in Uganda that updates the ‘give a man a fish’ slogan: “Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he’ll feed himself forever. Teach a woman to fish, and she’ll feed herself, her family, her neighbors and her … Continue reading
ILRI Clippings 