Here is an old (July 2009) news item we missed. The dairy conglomerate Danone built a small factory in Bangladesh to make nutritional yogurt for the poor. Danone’s yogurt brand in Bangladesh is called Shoktidoi, which means energy in Bengali. ‘When French dairy food firm Danone ventured outside the troubled business climate of Europe and the … Continue reading
Category Archives: Countries
Dairying / North America / USA
Dairy in the U.S. utterly transforms as family farms yield to mega-farms
First there were ‘family farms’, then ‘factory farms’, and now, as reported in a recent article in The Atlantic, ‘mega-farms’, which the article contrasts with family farming. Among the (astonishing) facts reported in the article regarding the speed of transformation of dairy in the United States are the following. ‘Until the 1970s, America’s milk products … Continue reading
Africa / Animal Production / Ethiopia / Goats / ILRI / IPMS / Livestock / Markets / Report / Sheep / Small Ruminants
Sheep and goat production and marketing systems in Ethiopia: characteristics and strategies for improvement
This working paper by Solomon Gizaw, Azage Tegegne, Berhanu Gebremedhin and Dirk Hoekstra on Sheep and goat production and marketing systems in Ethiopia: characteristics and strategies for improvement was released on 12 August, 2010. Ethiopia is home for a large and diverse livestock resources and favourable production environments. The vast majority of the rural population’s … Continue reading
Exceptional–dead–cattle now cloned in the US
‘Some of the cattle cloned to boost food production in the US have been created from the cells of dead animals, according to a US cloning company. Farmers say it is being done because it is only possible to tell that the animal’s meat is of exceptionally high quality by inspecting its carcass. ‘US scientists are … Continue reading
Large-scale American livestock farmers and animal rights activists agree to compromise
‘Concessions by farmers in this state [Ohio] to sharply restrict the close confinement of hens, hogs and veal calves are the latest sign that so-called factory farming — a staple of modern agriculture that is seen by critics as inhumane and a threat to the environment and health — is on the verge of significant … Continue reading
Why old (carnivory) habits die hard: Stone-tool butchery may be a 3.8-million-year-old affair
Reconstructed model of what Lucy looked like, from ‘Lucy’s Legacy: The Hidden Treasures of Ethiopia’, Houston Museum of Natural Science, July 2009 (photo by Trish Mayo) If something new is always coming out of Africa, something old is always coming out of the Middle Awash, a (once wet, now desiccated) region of the Great Rift … Continue reading
Africa / Animal Feeding / East Africa / Forages / ILRI / Livestock / Uganda
Scientists improving pasture content
Better days are dawning for farmers faced with problems of pasture for their livestock, now that scientists majoring in crop production research are improving on the nutritional content of pasture here. The scientists from the National Crop Resources Research Institute at Namulonge Department of Forage Research Programme are currently conducting research on various types of … Continue reading
UN launches broad appeal to aid Pakistan flood victims
In light of the continuing floods in Pakistan — which have caused widespread devastation and affected some 14 million people — UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called on donors to support a broad and potentially unprecedented aid campaign. UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs spokesman Maurizio Giuliano says that the number of people … Continue reading
Namibia prevented spread of Rift Valley fever, saved lives
FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf yesterday commended Namibia for acting swiftly and effectively to halt the spread of Rift Valley Fever (RVF) in the country during recent outbreaks. Speaking at a meeting in the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry in Windhoek, Diouf praised the Namibian institutions involved. “Their alertness and prompt reaction prevented outbreaks of … Continue reading
Woeful climate threatens Indonesia’s livestock production
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
ILRI Clippings 