Category Archives: Agriculture

Africa / Agriculture / Drylands / DRYLANDSCRP / East Africa / Event / Livestock Systems / Research / Southern Africa

CGIAR Drylands Research Program sets directions for East and Southern Africa

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This week in Nairobi, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) hosts a ‘Regional Inception Workshop’ of the CGIAR Research Program ‘Integrated and Sustainable Agricultural Production Systems for Improved Food Security and Livelihoods in Dry Areas.’ The program is led by the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA). The dry areas of the … Continue reading →

Agriculture / East Africa / Impact Assessment / Report / Research

Millennium Villages Project: Success? Failure? Unknown?–The controversy continues

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Young boys in Malawi on a break from class pose for the camera at The United Nations Millennium Villages Project (photo on Flickr by whl.travel). The Economist has started an interesting new blog, ‘Feast and famine: Demography and development’. On this blog, the magazine’s correspondents report on and analyse matters relating to demography and development, including food … Continue reading →

Agriculture / Animal Feeding / Cattle / Climate Change / Forages / Report / Southeast Asia

Improving forage crops in livestock systems shows potential for reducing climate change

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Vietnamese farmers with cattle fodder. A report by CIAT says livestock systems that use improved forage crops reduce the effects of climate change (photo credit: ILRI/Werner Stür). Last week, AlertNet published an opinion piece highlighting recent research by the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) on how forage-based systems, which dominate agriculture in the tropics, … Continue reading →

Agriculture / Animal Production / Climate Change / Crop-Livestock / Intensification / Livestock

FAO reviews stakeholder dialogue in support of sustainable livestock development

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Last week, the Committee on Agriculture of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) discussed options for “stakeholder dialogue in support of sustainable livestock sector development” as a contribution to the so-called “Global Agenda of Action in Support of Sustainable Livestock Sector Development. The Global Agenda of Action focuses on the improvement of resource-use efficiency in … Continue reading →

Agriculture / CGIAR / Directorate / Food Security / ILRI / Launch / Policy

Crop, tree, water, livestock and fish scientists call for action at Rio+20 sustainable development summit

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CGIAR centres and initiatives signing a 7-point ‘CGIAR Call to Action’ at the June 2012 Rio+20 UN sustainable development summit. Mark Kinver at the BBC reports today on a global group calling for decision-makers at the June Rio+20 sustainable development summit to take a concerted approach to agricultural policy, based on science. The International Livestock … Continue reading →

Agriculture / Ethiopia / Food Security / Ghana / Nutrition / Presentation / Tanzania

President Obama: Sustaining commitments, speeding things up, for African food security

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Last week at the 2012 G8 Summit in the USA, Oxfam International asked world leaders to join smallholder farmers and developing countries to fight hunger by delivering on their previous pledges and recommitting for the future by joining its Grow Campaign (image credit: Oxfam International). Last week, on 18 May and the eve of the 2012 … Continue reading →

Agriculture / Kenya / Rwanda / Uganda

Small milk producers, hawkers and service providers turn handsome profits as Kenya’s dairy sector continues to expand

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Milk, the ‘white gold’ of Kenya (photo on Flickr by eadairy, East African Dairy Development project). A booming market in milk in Kenya is enhancing the livelihoods of many poor people—from dairy farmers to milk processors to milk hawkers to the country’s tens of millions of daily consumers of fresh milk. ‘In recent months, milk … Continue reading →

Agriculture / Dairying / East Africa / Ethiopia / Extension / ILRI / Interview / IPMS / Markets

Market-oriented agricultural extension important for Ethiopia – ILRI tells BBC

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The Ethiopian economy is currently witnessing strong growth; however agricultural productivity in the smallholder sector, in dairying for example, is not as high as it could be. The BBC reports on developments in the country, including from a dairy development project of the Dutch development organization SNV. As part of the report, Berhanu Gebremedhin of … Continue reading →

Agriculture / Climate Change / Geodata

Climate change: Is geoengineering the answer? The danger? Or the necessary fall back?

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This image, from an article on the Explain That Stuff website about geoengineering, is a derivative work based on NASA’s 1972 (public domain) photo Full Earth, courtesy of NASA Johnson Space Center. An article in the New Yorker this month explores our (risky) options for ‘geoengineering’ our ways out of climate change. Will such novel approaches be endorsed … Continue reading →

Agriculture / CCAFS / Climate Change / Directorate / ILRI / India / South Asia / Southeast Asia / Thailand / Vietnam

Climate change expected to reduce Asia’s food production by as much as 50%

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Indonesian village devastated by flooding; climate change will bring about more severe floods and droughts (photo on Flickr by International Rivers). ‘As Asia’s monsoon season begins, leading climate specialists and agricultural scientists warn that rapid climate change and its potential to intensify droughts and floods could end Southeast Asia’s global dominance in rice production and … Continue reading →