World hunger best cured by small-scale agriculture: report

Posted on 13 Jan 2011 by ILRI Communications • Leave a comment

A move from industrial farming towards local food projects is our healthiest, most sustainable choice, says Worldwatch Institute The key to alleviating world hunger, poverty and combating climate change may lie in fresh, small-scale approaches to agriculture, according to a report from the Worldwatch Institute. The US-based institute’s annual State of the World report, published … Continue reading →

Africa / Agriculture / BecA / Food Security / Trade

Africa is getting serious about food

Posted on 9 Jan 2011 by Susan MacMillan • Leave a comment

Working in a maize field in Malawi (photo credit: ILRI/Mann). IRIN, a United Nations humanitarian news service, says Africa should be in a better position to feed itself in another five years. ‘. . . Shortly after Malawian president Bingu wa Mutharika became AU [Africa Union] chair in 2010, he announced a plan to make … Continue reading →

Africa / Agriculture / Climate Change / Food Security / ILRI / Impact Assessment

Round-up of news reports of ILRI study on the impacts of a 4-degree-C increase on African food production

Posted on 6 Jan 2011 by Susan MacMillan • Leave a comment

A farming household in the rainy season in Malawi; here, as in much of Africa, people’s livelihoods depend on the climate. This homestead is in Khulungira, a village of 150 families in central Malawi, 27 km from the nearest paved road and 50 km from the nearest town; there is no electricity and no running … Continue reading →

Africa / Agriculture / Dairying / East Africa / Food Security / Nutrition / Rwanda

Rwandan agriculture growing–one cow at a time

Posted on 6 Jan 2011 by Susan MacMillan • Leave a comment

An improved, crossbred, dairy cow made available in Rwanda by an East African Dairy Development project, which is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and led by Heifer International; the International Livestock Research Institute is a partner in this project (picture credit: ILRI/EADD). Uganda’s Independent recently carried an opinion piece extolling the good progress … Continue reading →

Agriculture / Impact Assessment / Livestock / Research / Women

Top 100 (‘future of agriculture’) questions

Posted on 3 Jan 2011 by Susan MacMillan • Leave a comment

The wizard (picture credit: Sean McGrath’s Photostream). In the (reflective/list-obsessed) spirit of the end-of-year/end-of-decade season, and in case you missed it last November, the ‘top 100’ questions on the future of global agriculture was whittled down from a total of 618 ‘key questions’ over the course of a year by a group of 55 experts … Continue reading →

Africa / Agriculture / Asia / Biodiversity / Environment / Film and video / Ghana / Indigenous Breeds / Livelihoods / NRM / Southeast Asia / Trade / Vietnam / West Africa / WLE

Here be dragons–and lions: Agricultural growth and development in Asia and Africa

Posted on 2 Jan 2011 by Susan MacMillan • Leave a comment

Dragon head detail on a gate to the walled Citadel of Hué, the former, imperial, capital of Viet Nam from the 17th to 19th centuries and national capital until 1945. Located in the middle of the country along the Perfume River, Hué’s Citadel, like Beijing’s Forbidden City, housed only emperors and their concubines and closest … Continue reading →

Africa / Agriculture / Drought / East Africa / Environment / Knowledge and Information / Livestock / Niger / Women

Could Acacia trees solve Africa’s hunger problems?

Posted on 31 Dec 2010 by ILRI Communications • Leave a comment

Decades of food delivery and ‘miracle’ seeds haven’t addressed underlying causes of hunger. But new efforts to replicate Africa’s original ecosystems are generating impressive, sustainable results Faith-based aid groups in Africa have a long and mostly admirable history of working to alleviate hunger. Too often, however, faith groups have focused their relief solely on food … Continue reading →

Africa / Agriculture / Cattle / East Africa / Insurance / Kenya / Livestock

In Kenya, generating wealth–one cow at a time

Posted on 30 Dec 2010 by ILRI Communications • 1 Comment

With mainstream banks and microfinance organizations mainly helping business startups in urban Kenya, a group called Juhudi Kilimo decided to focus on rural small-holder farmers. In the largely agricultural east African country of Kenya, many small-holder farmers need a way to start generating income. An organization called Juhudi Kilimo has stepped in with a new … Continue reading →

Africa / Agriculture / Animal Production / Ethiopia / ILRI / IPMS / Livestock / Markets

Commercialization of smallholders: Does market orientation translate into market participation?

Posted on 28 Dec 2010 by Meron Mulatu • Leave a comment

This working paper by Berhanu Gebremedhin and Moti Jaleta on Commercialization of smallholders: Does market orientation translate into market participation? was released on 15 December, 2010. It makes little distinction between market orientation (production decision based on market signals) and market participation (sale of output). It analyses the determinants of market orientation and market participation … Continue reading →

Africa / Agriculture / Environment / Farming Systems / West Africa

African farmers displaced as investors move in

Posted on 22 Dec 2010 by ILRI Communications • Leave a comment

The half-dozen strangers who descended on this remote West African village brought its hand-to-mouth farmers alarming news: their humble fields, tilled from one generation to the next, were now controlled by Libya’s leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, and the farmers would all have to leave. “They told us this would be the last rainy season for … Continue reading →