A4NH / Animal Diseases / Article / Bangladesh / Bird flu / Disease Control / Emerging Diseases / Epidemiology / Film and video / ILRI / Kenya / Nigeria / Uganda / Zoonotic Diseases

Draconian bans on urban livestock in developing countries ‘not the answer’–Guardian on ILRI report

Customers at a milk bar in Ndumbuini in Kabete, Nairobi  (photo credit: ILRI/Paul Karaimu). Mark Tran in the Guardian‘s Poverty Matters Blog warns us this week not to keep chickens under our beds. On the other hand, he infers, chicken bought on the street in poor countries may be safer to eat than that from … Continue reading

Africa / Animal Breeding / Animal Production / Biodiversity / Livestock / LIVESTOCKFISH / Report / Senegal / West Africa

Management of globally significant endemic ruminant livestock in Senegal

This report on Sustainable management of globally significant endemic ruminant livestock in West Africa: Estimate of livestock demographic parameters in Senegal was released by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in August 2012. Authored by Maria Ejlertsen, Jane Poole and Karen Marshall, it describes the results of a 12-month survey to estimate livestock demographic parameters of endemic … Continue reading

A4NH / Agri-Health / Animal Diseases / East Africa / Epidemiology / Human Health / ILRI / Kenya / West Africa / Zoonotic Diseases

Urban agriculture: Where suburbs and farms, pathogens and livestock, meet and mix

A dairy farm in Dagoretti, a suburb of Nairobi, Kenya, where lines between city-life and farm-life are blurred (photo credit: Tristan McConnell). Tristan McConnell reported in the GlobalPost yesterday that ‘In modern Africa, it can be hard to tell where the city ends and the countryside begins. Rural Kenyans flocking to the city in ever-greater numbers … Continue reading

Africa / Agriculture / Brazil / Food Security / Malawi / Opinion piece / Soils

African agriculture: Basket case or bread basket?

(Illustration on Flickr by Vintaga Posters.) Is Africa an agricultural basket case, or a potential bread basket? Michael Moran, in the GlobalPost, argues the case for the latter. ‘. . . Food security remains a problem in Malawi, as elsewhere in the so-called Guinea Savannah—a huge belt of arable (and largely untilled) land with unpredictable … Continue reading

Crop residues / Ethiopia / ILRI / ILRIComms / Intensification / Kenya / Presentation / Pro-Poor Livestock

New series of monthly high-level ‘livestock live talks’ begins in Nairobi and Addis Ababa

‘Livestock live talks’ is a new series of high-level monthly institutional one-hour seminars hosted by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). The new seminar series aims to address livestock-related issues, mobilize external as well as in-house expertise and audiences and engage the livestock community around interdisciplinary conversations that ask hard questions and seek to refine … Continue reading

Agriculture / CCAFS / Climate Change / East Africa / Ethiopia / Food Security / Livelihoods / Report

East Africans are taking up new farming practices to cope with climate change—but change too risky for hungry households – Survey

Dairy farmers in Tanzania. Farmers in East Africa are embracing climate-resilient farming practices but food insecurity prevents many of them from doing more to cope with a changing climate (photo credit: ILRI/Nils Teufel). Smallholder farmers across East Africa have started embracing climate-resilient farming approaches and technologies according to new research recently published by the CGIAR … Continue reading

Drought / Drylands / DRYLANDSCRP / East Africa / Ethiopia / Food Security / Geodata / ILRI / Insurance / Kenya / Pastoralism / PPR / Vulnerability

Eyes in the sky: ‘Index-based’ livestock insurance for pastoral herders pilot ‘a significant success’

An artist’s rendition of the next Landsat satellite, the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) that will launch in Feb 2013 (photo credit: NASA). The Landsat program is the longest continuous global record of Earth observations from space—ever. Since its first satellite went up in the summer of 1972, Landsat has been looking at our planet. The … Continue reading

Article / Disease Control / Epidemiology / Goats / ILRI / Pastoralism / PPR / Sheep / Sudan / Uganda / Vaccines

ILRI’s Jeff Mariner speaks on what he learned from the eradication of rinderpest–and his new fight against ‘goat plague’

ILRI veterinary epidemiologist Jeff Mariner presents his research at a meeting of the World Animal Health Organisation (OIE) (photo credit: OIE). Lauren Everitt of AllAfrica interviewed Jeffrey Mariner, a scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Nairobi, Kenya, about a current article he co-authored in Science (13 Sep 2012) on lessons learned in the eradication … Continue reading

Africa / Agriculture / Dairying / East Africa / Ethiopia / IPMS / Markets / Participation / Value Chains

Participatory smallholder dairy value chain development in Ethiopia

This case study on Participatory smallholder dairy value chain development in Fogera woreda, Ethiopia: Experiences from IPMS project interventions by Tilahun Gebey, Tesfaye Lemma, Dirk Hoekstra, Azage Tegegne and Bogale Alemu was released by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in July 2012. Market-oriented smallholder dairy in Fogera has an opportunity for growth because of … Continue reading

Africa / Agriculture / East Africa / Ethiopia / ILRI / IPMS / Knowledge and Information / Participation

IPMS – Farm Radio Participatory Agricultural Radio Series in Ethiopia: Sidama

In 2011, Farm Radio international conducted a Participatory Agricultural Radio Series (PARS) related to two of the commodity value chains of the Improving Productivity and Marketing Success (IPMS) project of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). The series focused on apiculture in the Tigray region and fruit tree production in Sidama region. The PARS was implemented … Continue reading