CGIAR / Drought / Drylands / East Africa / Insurance / Kenya / Pastoralism / Vulnerability

Kenyan herders cope with drought by buying livestock insurance

Sake Dabasso Halake stands proudly in front of Equity Bank’s Marsabit branch. She smiles, clutching an envelope filled with 16,000 Kenyan shillings that she just received. It was her insurance payout for the 10 cows she lost during the drought. Photo on Flickr by Jeff Haskins. Jeff Haskins, director of the Nairobi office of Burness … Continue reading

East Africa / Ethiopia / Film and video / ILRI / Kenya / Research

ILRI campus life in Ethiopia and Kenya – Virtual tours

What’s it like working and visiting the campus of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)? Our human resources team recently commissioned two short films … with staff members as your guides. Visit the Kenya campus in Nairobi with Kim Kariuki: Visit the Ethiopia campus in Addis Ababa with Tsehay Gashaw: Practical information on the Addis … Continue reading

Drought / Drylands / East Africa / Ethiopia / Food Security / ILRI / Insurance / Kenya / Pastoralism / Pro-Poor Livestock / Project / Vulnerability

To insure or not to insure: That is the question for Kenyan herders restocking after the great drought of 2011

The first payouts for livestock insurance being made in Marsabit District, in northern Kenya (photo on Flickr by Jeff Haskins). From Reuters AlertNet comes this update on how the livestock herders of Kenya’s Marsabit District are faring. Some bought an innovative livestock insurance product this year that is being piloted by the International Livestock Research … Continue reading

Drought / East Africa / Kenya / Knowledge and Information / Opinion piece / Pastoralism

Obsession with a bull, and related matters

A Dinka cattle camp at sunset in Abyei, Sudan (photo credit: UN photo/Tim McKulka). Here’s an interesting essay on the nature of human-livestock relations. It starts with a story of Emong, a Turkana herder, and his obsession with a bull, and quickly moves on to the ravages of drought in pastoral regions, Western concepts of nature … Continue reading

Drought / East Africa / Ethiopia / Event / Food Security / ILRI / Insurance / Kenya / Pastoralism / Vulnerability

Pioneering insurance for remote livestock herders taking hold in drought-prone areas of Kenya and Ethiopia

Sake Dabasso Halake with her recent livestock insurance payout, which was made in northern Kenya’s Marsabit District following the great drought that afflicted the Horn of Africa in the latter half of 2011 (photo credit: Jeff Haskins/Burness Communications). Laurie Goering, a reporter for AlertNet writing from the United Nations climate change meetings in Durban this … Continue reading

Drought / East Africa / Event / Food Security / Geodata / ILRI / Insurance / Kenya / Pastoralism / Vulnerability

New insurance program in Kenya covers cattle lost to drought

A blind pastoral herder in Kenya’s Marsabit District awaits payout of an insurance premium he bought to protect his livestock against drought (photo on Flickr by Jeff Haskins). Tristan McConnell, reporting from Nairobi, writes in the GlobalPost (Boston) yesterday of a new insurance program set up to protect a group of pastoral livestock herders in … Continue reading

Agriculture / BecA / Biotechnology / CGIAR / Directorate / East Africa / Food Security / ILRI / Interview / Kenya / Nutrition / Pro-Poor Livestock / Research

‘Livestock is the Cinderella of agricultural development’–An interview with Jimmy Smith

A lengthy interview with ILRI’s new director general Jimmy Smith is the leading post on the home page of the Syngenta Foundation website in Nov 2011 (image credit: Syngenta Foundation; credit for photo of Jimmy Smith: ILRI/Apollo Habtamu). ‘Jimmy Smith is the new Director General of [the International Livestock Research Institute] in Nairobi. He recently … Continue reading

Animal Production / BecA / Diagnostics / Disease Control / Film and video / ILRI / Kenya / Tanzania / Uganda / Vaccines

A focus on focus: Reining in an eclectic past to make a bigger difference

For the November 2011 ‘liveSTOCK Exchange’ event at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Tom Randolph, an American agricultural economist recently appointed director of a new multi-centre CGIAR Research Program (3.7: Livestock and Fish), reflects on ILRI’s longstanding strategic path toward greater disciplinary integration to achieve greater coherence and impact. An agricultural economist who came … Continue reading

Biotechnology / Diagnostics / Disease Control / ECF / Film and video / Kenya / Livestock / RVF / Vaccines

Finding a needle in a (molecular) haystack: A decade-long search for a parasite molecule on which to build a new vaccine against East Coast fever comes to fruition

For the November 2011 ‘liveSTOCK Exchange’ event at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Roger Pellé, a molecular biologist from Cameroon, reflects on ILRI’s biotechnology research accomplishments over the past decade that have involved partnerships with centres and countries in Africa. ‘I first came to ILRI in 1990 to work on trypanosomosis, a cattle disease … Continue reading

BecA / CBPP / Diagnostics / Disease Control / ECF / Film and video / ILRI / Kenya / PPR / Tanzania / Uganda / Vaccines

‘Out of the lab and into the field–with our clients’: Phil Toye on getting the balance in animal health research right

For the November 2011 ‘liveSTOCK Exchange’ event at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Phil Toye, an Australian immunologist who leads ILRI’s animal health research on development of diagnostics and vaccines for diseases of farm animals in Africa and other developing regions, reflects on the changes he’s seen at ILRI. Toye first came to ILRI’s … Continue reading