Category Archives: Countries

Africa / Asia / Drought / Drylands / DRYLANDSCRP / Food Security / ILRI / Impact Assessment / Kenya / Pastoralism / Vulnerability

Drought responses–New briefing paper on lessons still to learn

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‘Maasai herding’, painting by Kahare Miano (photo credit: ILRI/Dave Elsworth). A new 19-page briefing paper provides a synthesis of key lessons learnt from evaluations of relief and recovery responses to past slow-onset disasters—particularly drought, and food and livelihoods insecurity. The paper is intended for people working in relief and recovery operations for slow-onset disasters—those who … Continue reading →

Drought / East Africa / Food Security / Kenya / Livelihoods / Livestock / Nutrition / Pastoralism / Presentation / Somalia / Vulnerability

Livestock critical to livelihoods and life in Africa – USAID advisor

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Kenya cow bell, on loan from Gary K Clarke, of Cowabunga Safaris, for Africa Everyday Exhibit (image credit: Topeka & Shawnee Country Public Library). Livestock keeping means food security and livelihoods for the world’s poorest people. That’s the message delivered by Joyce Turk, senior livestock advisor at the United States Agency for International Development, at … Continue reading →

Drought / Drylands / DRYLANDSCRP / East Africa / Food Security / ILRI / Insurance / Kenya / Pastoralism / Project / Vulnerability

Remote Kenya livestock herders receive their first drought insurance payouts

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ILRI staff help local livestock herders in Kenya’s Marsabit District understand how they might benefit from a new ‘index-based’ livestock insurance policy scheme, which is providing 650 herders who paid for this insurance with their first payout this month, following the loss of forage due to a drought that hit Marsabit as well as much … Continue reading →

Africa / Animal Production / Climate Change / East Africa / Environment / Ethiopia / Livestock

Climate change, food security and growth: Ethiopia’s complex relationship with livestock

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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 →

Africa / Burkina Faso / Crop-Livestock / Ghana / ILRI / Livestock / Livestock-Water / NRM / Opinion piece / Research / West Africa / WLE

Water scarcity limits crop-livestock production in the Volta Basin

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For the November 2011 ‘liveSTOCK Exchange’ event at ILRI, Sabine Douxchamps reflects on her livestock-water work in West Africa … Rainwater management strategies (RMS) have been extensively studied and promoted in the Volta Basin during the last decades. However, water scarcity still limits the agricultural production of most of the smallholder crop-livestock farms of the … Continue reading →

Agriculture / Animal Diseases / Asia / Bird flu / Emerging Diseases / Event / Food Security / ILRI / Indonesia / Livestock / Markets / Value Chains / Vietnam

Livestock presentations at Asian Society of Agricultural Economics Conference in Hanoi

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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 →

Africa / Animal Production / Canada / Capacity Strengthening / East Africa / Ethiopia / ILRI / IPMS / Livestock / Markets / Project / Value Chains

Canadian parliamentarians see how markets work for Ethiopian farmers

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Members of the Canada-Africa Parliament Association on their visit to Ethiopia (photo credit: ILRI/Zerihun Sewunet). On 10–11 October 2011, six members of the Canada-Africa Parliament Association (4 parliamentarians and 2 senators) visited Ethiopia. At the request of the Canadian Embassy, the CIDA-funded IPMS project at ILRI organized a field visit to Ada’a District—one of the project’s … Continue reading →

Climate Change / Drought / East Africa / Ethiopia / Food Security / Kenya / Pastoralism / Somalia / Sudan / Vulnerability

Keeping famine at bay in the Horn of Africa

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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 →

Agriculture / Drought / East Africa / Film and video / Food Security / Kenya / Vulnerability

Small farmers are productive farmers, if given the right support–de Schutter

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Watch this 6-minute ILRI film about a previous drought that devastated much of East Africa in 2008–2009. In Kenya, the Kitengela Maasai pastoral rangelands south of Nairobi, and the hot and dry crop-livestock farming district of Kitui further east, experienced many of the worst effects, including reports of the deaths of up to half of … Continue reading →

Drought / East Africa / Food Security / Somalia / Vulnerability

Prospects for greater agricultural investments in the Horn?

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Kenya refugee camps, July 2011 (photo on Flickr by IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation/Turkey). The International Agriculture and Development Blog reports that ‘The [famine] crisis continues to unravel in the Horn of Africa. . . . In an excellent commentary from Project Syndicate, Sam Dryden, the Director of the Agricultural Development Program at the Bill and … Continue reading →