For people living in absolute poverty and chronic hunger, the solution is not to rid the world of livestock, but to find ways to farm animals more efficiently and more sustainably Continue reading
Category Archives: Climate Change
Africa / Agriculture / Australia / BecA / Climate Change / Directorate / Food Security / ILRI / Interview / Kenya / Research
Australian champions for international agricultural research speak out on new Australian initiative to reach out to Africa
ILRI’s Gabrielle Persley being interviewed by Australian journalist Kate Sieper at ILRI’s ‘John Vercoe Conference on Animal Breeding for Poverty Reduction’, held in Nairobi in 2007 (photo credit: ILRI/Susan MacMillan). The Australian Federal Government is funding a new multi-million-dollar Australian International Centre for Food Security, aimed at helping millions of Africans lift themselves out of … Continue reading
Animal Production / CCAFS / Climate Change / Environment / Ethiopia / ILRI / Livestock / Livestock Systems / Report / Research
Livestock and climate change
For the November 2011 ‘liveSTOCK Exchange’ event at ILRI, Philip Thornton, Mario Herrero and Polly Ericksen prepared an issue brief on the relations between climate change and livestock systems in developing countries … Livestock systems occupy 45% of the global surface area with a value of at least $1.4 trillion. Livestock industries and value chains … Continue reading
Animal Production / Climate Change / ILRI / Livestock / Livestock Systems / Livestock-Water / Opinion piece / Pastoralism / Research / Vulnerability
Balancing efforts to address climate change, poverty, risk and uncertainty
For the November 2011 ‘liveSTOCK Exchange’ event at ILRI, Tom Thurow, Professor of Watershed Management at the University of Wyoming reflects on priorities for livestock systems research at ILRI… Climate Change While working in several Latin American countries this summer it struck me that many environmental management/regulation advances that these countries had been making a … Continue reading
Animal Production / Climate Change / ILRI / Livestock / Opinion piece / Pro-Poor Livestock / Research / Southern Africa / Vulnerability
ILRI in southern Africa–More efforts needed to address vulnerability and climate change
For the November 2011 ‘liveSTOCK Exchange’ event at ILRI, Sikhalazo Dube, from South Africa’s Agricultural Research Council (ARC), reflects on ILRI’s work in southern Africa … Livestock research and development practitioners in the region welcomed the opening up of ILRI’s regional office in southern Africa five years ago. ILRI identified two areas as possible entry … Continue reading
Climate Change / Drought / East Africa / Event / Food Security / ILRI / Insurance / Kenya / Pastoralism / Photo / Vulnerability
New satellite-based insurance scheme makes first payments to drought-hit pastoralists in the Horn
The carcass of a donkey in northern Kenya; like many other animals in recent weeks, this animal lay down to die just as seasonal rains arrived in the region following a prolonged drought. Photographer Neil Palmer explains: ‘Already weakened by months of near-starvation, the animals were unable to endure the colder weather that followed the … Continue reading
Climate change, food security and growth: Ethiopia’s complex relationship with livestock
Brighter Green has just published a study on Ethiopia’s complex relationship with livestock. It uses climate change as entry point to explore the effects of the expansion and intensification of the livestock sector in Ethiopia for the country’s food security, resource use, and issues of equity and sustainability. In this policy brief, Brighter Green questions whether … Continue reading
Climate Change / Drought / East Africa / Ethiopia / Food Security / Kenya / Pastoralism / Somalia / Sudan / Vulnerability
Keeping famine at bay in the Horn of Africa
A young boy herds a flock of goats on the road to Wajir from Garissa in northeastern Kenya (photo on Flickr by Ann Weru/IRIN). Debora MacKenzie writes in New Scientist this week that low-key projects keep Horn of Africa famine at bay. ‘Drought in the Horn of Africa threatens 13 million people with starvation and is … Continue reading
Climate Change / Directorate / ILRI / Launch / Pastoralism
Fund opens to support research helping pastoral livestock herders mitigate greenhouse gas emissions
‘A competitive, international fund for research on mitigating greenhouse gas emissions from pastoral farming is now open for applications. ‘Agriculture Minister David Carter announced the NZ$25 million Fund for Global Partnerships in Livestock Emissions Research at the inaugural ministerial meeting of the Global Research Alliance in Rome in June. ‘The Fund draws on the NZ$45 … Continue reading
CCAFS / Climate Change / Drought / East Africa / Film and video / Food Security / Insurance / Vulnerability
Reverse decline in agricultural development in drought-ravaged Horn of Africa–Jim Hansen
Climate and food security expert Jim Hansen, based at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society, at Colombia University, recently laid out some of the causes of food insecurity in drought-afflicted East Africa. Among the main reasons he cites is a decline, since the 1990s, in agricultural research and development in this region, a … Continue reading
ILRI Clippings 