Category Archives: Animal Feeding

Animal Breeding / Animal Diseases / Animal Feeding / Animal Health / Animal Production / Food Security / Livestock / Research

The future of hunger: How animal science supports global food security

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In the past few weeks, Madeline McCurry-Schmidt has published a series of short pieces exploring ways that animal scientists can help feed the world’s growing population. Published on the American Society of Animal Science ‘Taking Stock’ blog, the five articles covered: Part 1 – explored the coming food crisis from a livestock perspective Part 2 … Continue reading →

Animal Breeding / Animal Feeding / China / Genetics / Intensification / Pigs / Poultry / Trade / USA

Exporting American livestock genetics to China: Grain to follow?

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Min piglets at the experimental station at the Institute for Animal Science, in Beijing, China (photo credit: ILRI/Stevie Mann). America is breeding farm animals for China, Reuters and the New York Times report, to supply China with more meat. ‘. . . In a country where pork is a staple, the demand for a protein-rich … Continue reading →

Animal Feeding / Buffalo / Cattle / Crop residues / Crop-Livestock / East Africa / Fodder / ILRI / India / Intensification / South Asia / Tanzania

Dual-purpose groundnut, pigeonpea, millet and sorghum raise milk yields in dairy-intensive India

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Groundnuts (photo on Flickr by Stephen Eustace). Jerome Bossuet, of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), based in Pantancheru, India, has an interesting article in the New Agriculturist last month about fodder innovations helping Indian dairy farmers. Feed matters are big matters in this intensive dairy-producing country, because ‘Feed represents around 70 … Continue reading →

Agriculture / Animal Feeding / Biodiversity / Ethiopia / Film and video / Forages / Genebank / Seeds

ILRI Genebank preserves forages to help farmers produce more food

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For the November 2011 ‘liveSTOCK Exchange’ event at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Alexandra Jorge, who has taken over from Jean Hanson as manager of ILRI’s Genebank, reflects on ILRI’s forage research and the importance of the forage seeds genebank hosted at the ILRI campus in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. ‘I joined ILRI in Ethiopia … Continue reading →

Africa / Animal Feeding / Ethiopia / ILRI / Innovation Systems / Livestock / Livestock Systems / Project / Report / Research

Ten lessons on multi-stakeholder networks and innovation platforms

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For the November 2011 ‘liveSTOCK Exchange’ event at ILRI, Keith Sones and Alan Duncan prepared an issue brief with lessons on ways to establish and facilitate multi-stakeholder networks on smallholder agriculture in developing countries. … Between 2007 and 2010, the Fodder Adoption Project (FAP) – funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and … Continue reading →

Animal Feeding / Ethiopia / Fodder / Forages / ILRI / Innovation Systems / Livestock / Value Chains / Vietnam

Fodder adoption to enhance the livelihoods of poor livestock keepers: Lessons from a three-country study

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Feed scarcity in smallholder systems is a key constraint to improved livestock production in developing countries. However, development efforts which have taken a narrow technology-focused approach to dealing with feed scarcity have had limited success. The IFAD-supported ‘Fodder Adoption Project’  ran between 2007 and 2010 and aimed to address issues around inadequate livestock fodder at … Continue reading →

Agriculture / Animal Feeding / Asia / Brazil / China / Latin America / Trade / USA

China’s insatiable appetite for Brazil’s soybeans is making the latter country rich–and nervous

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Planting soy in the state of Paraná, Brazil (photograph via Flickr by Dami Izolan). Daniel Kfouri reports in the New York Times that Brazil’s ‘$7 billion agreement signed last month—to produce six million tons of soybeans a year—is one of several struck in recent weeks as China hurries to shore up its food security and offset … Continue reading →

Animal Feeding / Crop residues / Crop-Livestock / Fodder / Forages / India / Livestock / Livestock Systems

Animal nutrition ‘successes and failures’ in developing countries

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During the last four decades a number of animal-nutrition-based technologies and practices have been developed and used in developing countries, with varying degrees of success. Some technologies have produced profound beneficial effects and have been widely used; while others have shown potential on research stations but have not been taken up by farmers. To learn … Continue reading →

Africa / Animal Feeding / Dairying / Ethiopia / Livestock / Markets

Feed- and dairy-processing plants to improve food security in Ethiopia

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As part of the Feed Enhancement for Ethiopian Development (FEED) project, ACDI/VOCA reports that Ethiopian cooperatives and consumers are fighting food insecurity and benefiting from new feed and dairy plants. In the project, ACDI/VOCA partnered with the Selale Dairy Producers Cooperative Union to make investments in local agricultural production to fill market gaps and improve … Continue reading →