Ethiopian livestock-keeping family (photo credit: ILRI/Apollo Habtamu). Dan Murphy, a food industry journalist, has published a commentary on a Pork Network website about a livestock chapter in the State of the World 2011: Innovations That Nourish the Planet, published by the Worldwatch Institute, in the USA. ‘The book aims to provide a blueprint for coping with … Continue reading
Author Archives: Susan MacMillan
Article / Capacity Strengthening / Drought / East Africa / Ethiopia / ILRI / Pastoralism / Vulnerability / Women
Capacity building helps Ethiopia’s pastoral women transform their impoverished, drought-ravaged communities
Borana girl (photo on Flickr by Gustavo Jeronimo). Layne Coppock, of Utah State University, and Solomon Desta, Seyoum Tezera and Getachew Gebru, of Managing Risk for Improved Livelihoods, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, report in the journal Science this month on a project they conducted in southern pastoral Ethiopia that indicates that capacity building can, and should, ‘set … Continue reading
Obsession with a bull, and related matters
A Dinka cattle camp at sunset in Abyei, Sudan (photo credit: UN photo/Tim McKulka). Here’s an interesting essay on the nature of human-livestock relations. It starts with a story of Emong, a Turkana herder, and his obsession with a bull, and quickly moves on to the ravages of drought in pastoral regions, Western concepts of nature … Continue reading
Drought / East Africa / Ethiopia / Event / Food Security / ILRI / Insurance / Kenya / Pastoralism / Vulnerability
Pioneering insurance for remote livestock herders taking hold in drought-prone areas of Kenya and Ethiopia
Sake Dabasso Halake with her recent livestock insurance payout, which was made in northern Kenya’s Marsabit District following the great drought that afflicted the Horn of Africa in the latter half of 2011 (photo credit: Jeff Haskins/Burness Communications). Laurie Goering, a reporter for AlertNet writing from the United Nations climate change meetings in Durban this … Continue reading
ASF / CBPP / Directorate / Event report / ILRI / Presentation / Research / Staff
Livestock research for development in a complex, messy world: Carlos Seré reflects on a decade of work for ILRI
ILRI former director general Carlos Seré at an ILRI ‘liveSTOCK Exchange’ event held in Nov 2011 on ILRI’s campus in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to reflect on the ‘Seré legacy’ and ways forward for the institute under ILRI’s new director general, Jimmy Smith (photo credit: ILRI/Zerihun Sewunet). On 9 and 10 November 2011, the ILRI Board of … Continue reading
Drought / East Africa / Event / Food Security / Geodata / ILRI / Insurance / Kenya / Pastoralism / Vulnerability
New insurance program in Kenya covers cattle lost to drought
A blind pastoral herder in Kenya’s Marsabit District awaits payout of an insurance premium he bought to protect his livestock against drought (photo on Flickr by Jeff Haskins). Tristan McConnell, reporting from Nairobi, writes in the GlobalPost (Boston) yesterday of a new insurance program set up to protect a group of pastoral livestock herders in … Continue reading
Agriculture / BecA / Biotechnology / CGIAR / Directorate / East Africa / Food Security / ILRI / Interview / Kenya / Nutrition / Pro-Poor Livestock / Research
‘Livestock is the Cinderella of agricultural development’–An interview with Jimmy Smith
A lengthy interview with ILRI’s new director general Jimmy Smith is the leading post on the home page of the Syngenta Foundation website in Nov 2011 (image credit: Syngenta Foundation; credit for photo of Jimmy Smith: ILRI/Apollo Habtamu). ‘Jimmy Smith is the new Director General of [the International Livestock Research Institute] in Nairobi. He recently … Continue reading
Animal Production / BecA / Diagnostics / Disease Control / Film and video / ILRI / Kenya / Tanzania / Uganda / Vaccines
A focus on focus: Reining in an eclectic past to make a bigger difference
For the November 2011 ‘liveSTOCK Exchange’ event at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Tom Randolph, an American agricultural economist recently appointed director of a new multi-centre CGIAR Research Program (3.7: Livestock and Fish), reflects on ILRI’s longstanding strategic path toward greater disciplinary integration to achieve greater coherence and impact. An agricultural economist who came … Continue reading
BecA / CBPP / Diagnostics / Disease Control / ECF / Film and video / ILRI / Kenya / PPR / Tanzania / Uganda / Vaccines
‘Out of the lab and into the field–with our clients’: Phil Toye on getting the balance in animal health research right
For the November 2011 ‘liveSTOCK Exchange’ event at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Phil Toye, an Australian immunologist who leads ILRI’s animal health research on development of diagnostics and vaccines for diseases of farm animals in Africa and other developing regions, reflects on the changes he’s seen at ILRI. Toye first came to ILRI’s … Continue reading
Africa / Agriculture / Australia / BecA / Climate Change / Directorate / Food Security / ILRI / Interview / Kenya / Research
Australian champions for international agricultural research speak out on new Australian initiative to reach out to Africa
ILRI’s Gabrielle Persley being interviewed by Australian journalist Kate Sieper at ILRI’s ‘John Vercoe Conference on Animal Breeding for Poverty Reduction’, held in Nairobi in 2007 (photo credit: ILRI/Susan MacMillan). The Australian Federal Government is funding a new multi-million-dollar Australian International Centre for Food Security, aimed at helping millions of Africans lift themselves out of … Continue reading
ILRI Clippings 