On a recent World Bank ‘Voices’ blog, German agricultural economist Juergen Voegele, World Bank vice president for sustainable development, said that with the emptying of supermarket shelves and the sweeping travel bans being put in place to try to stem the spread of COVID-19, one might deduce that global food supplies were low. That’s not the case, he says. Continue reading
Category Archives: CGIAR
ILRI and partners celebrate World Food Day 2019
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, ILRI, and the Ministry of Agriculture celebrated the World Food Day on 16 October 2019 at the ILRI campus in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Continue reading
CGIAR and Somali officials and donors come together at ICRAF to support agricultural development in Somalia
With livestock and cropping the backbone of the country, leaders from 11 of the 15 CGIAR centres met with Somali officials last month at ICRAF to map ways that CGIAR dryland agricultural research could accelerate and enhance Somalia’s development. Continue reading
Donors commit USD790m to help smallholder farmers cope with climate change; Global Commission on Adaptation calls for doubling of investments in CGIAR
On September 23, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, the European Commission, Switzerland, Sweden and Germany announced commitments of more than US $790 million to address the impact of climate change on food and agriculture. These commitments followed a recent call by the Global Commission on Adaptation, led by Ban Ki Moon, Bill Gates, and Kristalina Georgieva, for increased resource allocations to international agricultural research. Continue reading
A ‘caloric calculus’ with big consequences—healthy foods are expensive in poor countries, unhealthy foods cheap in rich countries—New IFPRI paper
Results of a new IFPRI study on ‘relative caloric prices’ show that many healthy foods are much more expensive in poor countries, while many unhealthy foods are much cheaper in richer countries. Continue reading
Overuse and misuse of antibiotics – a problem driven by the world’s poor and rich alike
As reported this week by Andrew Jacobs and Matt Richtel in the New York Times, ‘Kibera residents are prodigious consumers of antibiotics’. Kibera area, one of Africa’s largest urban slums, is located in Nairobi, Kenya, with a population of around one million. Most people in the slum lack access to running water, electricity and … Continue reading
Drug resistance could make millions of people poorer
As reported this week by Jacqueline Ogada, a journalist at SciDevNet, the director general of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) said recently that ‘reducing the use of antimicrobials in agriculture as well as medicine . . . can make a huge difference’ in protecting public health. ILRI director general Jimmy Smith said this at … Continue reading
Thanks to CGIAR funders of research for sustainable livestock!
Thanks to CGIAR funders of research for sustainable livestock! Continue reading
An animal data safari at the 2018 CGIAR Big Data in Agriculture Convention
Last week, on 4 October – World Animal Day – ILRI’s Peter Ballantyne coordinated an interactive ‘mini-safari’ at the Big Data in Agriculture 2018 convention to showcase and demonstrate data-driven opportunities for and from livestock and fish ecosystems. Continue reading
The British High Commissioner to Kenya visits ILRI’s Nairobi livestock labs and campus
The British High Commissioner to Kenya, His Excellency Mr Nic Hailey, made a courtesy visit to the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) on Tuesday, 31 July 2018. Continue reading