Lindiwe Majele Sibanda, member of the ILRI Board of Trustees and CEO of the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) (picture credit: ILRI). Lindiwe Majele Sibanda celebrates International Women’s Day today with the following message. ‘As we mark the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, a global day celebrating the economic, political … Continue reading
Women taking goods to market (photo credit: ILRI/Kebede). The New Agriculturist this month provides a snapshot of views about where we are in gender research for agricultural development. Journalist Olivia Schwier collected these viewpoints at a ‘Gender and Market-Oriented Agriculture’ workshop held 31 January—2 February 2011 in Addis Ababa. Lessons from case studies in gender work … Continue reading
Customers rush to buy bread, a staple in high demand in Mozambique, after it arrives at a bakery in the south of the country as wheat ran short and food prices rose in 2008 (photo credit: ILRI/Mann). A leader for a special report on feeding the world’s growing population, published in the Economist recently (24 February … Continue reading
Pig breeding on a farm in Dimapur, Nagaland, India (photo credit: ILRI/Mann). The Telegraph in Calcutta ran a story this week on why pigs—and pig breeding—matters to the marginalized indigenous communities of India’s northeast. ‘For the 600-odd villagers of two districts of Mon lying on either side of the [Nagaland] border, pig breeding has now … Continue reading
‘The Svalbard Global Seed Vault celebrated its third anniversary with the arrival of seeds for rare lima beans, blight-resistant cantaloupe, and progenitors of antioxidant-rich red tomatoes from Peru and the Galapagos Islands. The arrival of these collections, including many drought- and flood-resistant varieties, comes at a time when natural and man-made risks to agriculture have … Continue reading
A new study projects that half the world’s land-based permafrost will vanish by mid-century on our current greenhouse gas emissions path, turning today’s Arctic carbon into a huge carbon source by the 2020s, at which time the North Pole is expected to be largely ice-free. The thaw and decay of permafrost carbon is irreversible. What … Continue reading
A consultant to the European Commission, Wyn Richards, this week expressed satisfaction at the methodology adopted in India ‘for sensitizing the stakeholders on hygienic handling and distribution of unadulterated milk’ in Guwahati, the capital of the state of Assam. The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) is providing technical support to this project. ‘Milk though is … Continue reading
The 1,000 participants that gathered in Delhi last week for an international conference organized by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) came from 65 countries and from the agricultural, health, nutrition, and related sectors and represented governments, non-governmental organizations, the private sector, research organizations and academia alike. Some 150 chairpersons, speakers and rapporteurs engaged themselves … Continue reading
The ‘hairless’ (non-wool-producing), native and worm-resistant red Maasai sheep of East Africa (photo credit: ILRI). An article this week in InterPress Service tells of Samburu pastoral herders working to bring back their native Red Maasai sheep because it does better than other, exotic, breeds, in the increasingly variable climate of northern Kenya. ‘. . . … Continue reading
Participants at a conference on ‘Leveraging Agriculture for Human Nutrition and Health’, which has just ended in New Delhi, heard that livestock intensification in developing countries, especially in Africa and Asia, may increase the incidence of epidemics that kill both humans and animals. ‘”The increase in density leads to increased contact between humans and animals—leading … Continue reading
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