Category Archives: Countries

Agriculture / Animal Feeding / DRYLANDSCRP / East Africa / Ethiopia / Feeds / Fodder / Forages / HUMIDTROPICS / LIVESTOCKFISH / Project / Value Chains

Refining livestock feed assessment tools – ILRI’s work in 2012

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Feed is often cited as the first limiting constraint to livestock intensification in smallholder mixed-crop farming systems in developing countries. However attempts to deal with the feed constraint tend to focus on promotion of a fairly standard set of feed technologies with often disappointing results. Our experience is that feed intervention failures can be traced … Continue reading →

Africa / East Africa / Ethiopia / Livestock Systems / Livestock-Water / NRM / Project / Water / WLE

The ‘happy strategies’ game: Matching land and water interventions with community and landscape needs

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In mid 2011, Catherine Pfeifer, ILRI/IWMI researcher in the Nile Basin Development Challenge (NBDC), posed us a challenge: What kind of exercise could we do that would combine ‘expert’ knowledge of land and water practices with the needs of ‘landscapes’ and communities where these could be applied. The result should be some validated ‘best bet’ … Continue reading →

Animal Feeding / China / Indonesia / Kenya / Rwanda / Tanzania / Vietnam

Sweet potato roots and leaves for ‘cow cafeterias’ and ‘pig pantries’ in East Africa

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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 →

CCAFS / Climate Change / India / South Asia

India fights curbs on livestock-generated greenhouse gas emissions at Doha

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Girdhai Lal Jat herds his cattle through the village of Nagar, in Tonk District, Rajasthan, India, to water (photo credit: ILRI/Stevie Mann). ‘At the United Nations climate talks in Doha this week, India opposed any move that would require developing countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. ‘With an estimated 485 million cattle, goat, … Continue reading →

Animal Diseases / Animal Health / Cattle / Central Africa / Disease Control / East Africa / ECF / ILRI / Kenya / Launch / Southern Africa / Vaccines

Vaccine developed by KARI, supported by ILRI, is ‘milestone in control of Africa’s livestock diseases’

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Faith Kivuti with her mother milking a cow in Kenya (photo on Flickr by Jeff Haskins). A vaccine to protect cattle against a lethal disease known as East Coast fever has been launched in Kenya, where Kenya Livestock Development Minister Mohammed Kuti says the development ‘is a big relief to livestock farmers in East, Central and … Continue reading →

Agriculture / Animal Production / Cattle / Dairying / Kenya / Knowledge and Information

Livestock and mobile technology: Livestock live talk at ILRI on 11 December 2012

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Su Kahumbu, a Kenyan social entrepreneur (TED Global Fellow 2010) and  2010 winner of Apps4Africa award for the  the iCow application, a cow management platform that helps small-scale farmers manage their dairy cows, will give a presentation on ‘livestock and mobile technology’ at the ILRI Nairobi campus John Vercoe Auditorium, on 11 December 2012, from 1500-1600 hours. View the event announcement: The iCow … Continue reading →

Article / East Africa / Ethiopia / ILRI / IPMS / Knowledge and Information

Investing in rural knowledge: IPMS helps build Arbisi primary school in Ethiopia

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Over the past six years, the Improving productivity and market success (IPMS) project has touched the lives of many Ethiopians at different levels, in different ways and times. For some, it was a stepping stone to the next level in life, or a means to find a purpose, or a way to achieve the greatest … Continue reading →

A4NH / Agri-Health / CCAFS / Climate Change / Disease Control / East Africa / Emerging Diseases / Environment / Food Security / Kenya / RVF / Zoonotic Diseases

Healthy Futures project examines ways to understand vector-borne diseases, climate change and food security

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Together with regional stakeholders, the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) generated so-called ‘socio-economic scenarios’.  These scenarios aim to explore key regional socio-economic and governance uncertainties for food security, environment and livelihoods through integrated qualitative-quantitative descriptions of plausible futures to 2030. The CCAFS vision has been to use these scenarios with … Continue reading →

Capacity Strengthening / East Africa / Ethiopia / ILRI / IPMS / Women

Ethiopia TV broadcasts series on the empowerment of rural women

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The Improving the Productivity and Market Success (IPMS) of Ethiopian Farmers project was recently approached by the producers of ‘Egna’ TV program, one of the well-known evening Ethiopian TV shows, to document the project’s work on rural women empowerment. Egna’s producer, Gelila Media and Advertisement PLC produce and broadcast TV shows focusing on ways that … Continue reading →

Buffalo / Cattle / Dairying / Directorate / Event report / ILRI / India / South Asia

India’s livestock development trajectory ‘exemplary’–Not only huge in aggregate but also small in scale and sustainable in nature

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 ILRI’s Sapna Jarial translates a speech delivered by a village council president on field visit in Haryana, India, on 4 Nov 2012, made by ILRI management and board (photo credit: ILRI/Nils Teufel). Ilse Köhler-Rollefson, a German livestock researcher and activist ‘for socially responsible and ecologically sustainable livestock development’, asks in a recent blog post, ‘Whose … Continue reading →