This week is World Antibiotic Awareness Week. Get yourself updated with this useful short overview on the rising global problem of antimicrobial resistance by reading this ‘Factbox’ from Thomson Reuters Foundation. Continue reading
A recent paper that maps the global distributions of the world’s major livestock species has already been used to advance understanding of where surveillance efforts should be targeted to prevent the possible spread of a lethal bird flu virus now circulating in poultry populations in China, where it has killed 62 people. The original mapping work, led by Tim Robinson, of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), and published at the end of May, was immediately put to practical use in locating large regions in South and Southeast Asia that would suit the new lethal virus. Continue reading
An East African researcher holds handfuls of sweet potato roots and leaves, to be used as animal feed (photo credit: Neil Palmer/CIAT). ‘Pressures from climate change and population growth are increasing the competition for grains as food or livestock feed in countries like Kenya, Tanzania, and Rwanda. But sweet potato, which can grow in harsh … Continue reading
This new report from the ACIAR – the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research – argues that the “improvement of production and profitability in smallholder beef enterprises is typically not limited by a lack of promising feeding and management technologies. It is more due to low access to, and uptake of, these technologies. There has … Continue reading
From 13–15 October 2011, several staff of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) attended the 7th International Conference of the Asian Society of Agricultural Economists, in Hanoi, Vietnam. ILRI organized two parallel sessions: (1) Food safety policy in a developing-country context: Examples from case studies in livestock value chains (2) Assessing the impact of livestock research … Continue reading
Foods of Khulungira Village, in central Malawi: Fish stew (nsomba zophika), boiled maize (chimanga chophika), mixed beans with salt and oil (nyemba zophika), dried mushrooms with groundnuts (bowa wofutsa), pumpkin leaves with pumpkin blossoms and potatoes (nkhwani wophatikiza ndi maungu anthete ndi kachewere wophika) and boiled eggs with tomato, onions, oil and salt (mazira ophika ndi … Continue reading
ILRI has worked with Indonesia to control bird flu using participatory disease surveillance and control approaches (photo credit: ILRI/Jost). The World Bank this week reports that since the beginning of this year, the H5N1 bird flu virus has re-emerged, killing people in Egypt and across Asia. Experts say we need to invest in stronger human … Continue reading
Unpredictable changes in world climate and the global energy crisis have affected the production of livestock, according to an expert. “We used to have a year of half rain and half sunshine. Farmers had no difficulties in poultry provision,” Iman Hernawan, a poultry nutritionist from Padjadjaran University, said in Bandung on Wednesday. Read more … … Continue reading
Brian Perry, a former scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and a continuing collaborator with ILRI, now a visiting Professor at the University of Oxford, writes a column, ‘Our Man in Africa’, for the Dick Vet News, of the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies at the University of Edinburgh. Perry’s column in the … Continue reading
ILRI Clippings 