The human and environmental disruption wreaked by drought in Somaliland, where more than 60 percent of people raise livestock for a living, means the self-declared, but barely recognized, independent state should draw up its own plan for climate change adaptation, according to a new report. The Impact of Climate Change on Pastoral Societies of Somaliland, … Continue reading
Category Archives: Countries
Livestock and livelihoods: a partnership approach
Livestock and pensions provide the main source of livelihood for the farmers living around the Hoachanas settlement situated in the Kalahari Sandveld of Namibia. Small stock, such as goats and sheep, are crucial for food and income, with the area too dry for crop and feed production. But mortality of animals due to dry season … Continue reading
Africa / Climate Change / Drought / East Africa / French / Kenya / Pastoralism
ACTED améliore les capacités de résistance au changement climatique dans l’ouest du Kenya
ACTED répond à la crise alimentaire dans l’est du Pokot en conduisant des opération de soutien aux moyens de subsistance et de protection des ressources naturelles dans le district de Churo, avec le soutien financier d’OFDA et d’USAID. Après 9 mois de projet, les communautés ont grandement amélioré leur resistance à la sécheresse et à … Continue reading
Africa / Agriculture / Asia / Crop-Livestock / Livestock / Research / Uganda
The future of agricultural research for development
There is no doubt that in the last 50 years, agricultural science has helped to overcome the threat of famine for billions of people. But a billion remain undernourished and the spectre of poverty remains. With climate change, rising food prices and a burgeoning global population, the demands on agriculture to become more efficient and … Continue reading
Southern Africa academics visit London institute to create new ‘One-health’ courses
Academics from Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia visited course directors and researchers at two of LIDC’s member Colleges—the Royal Veterinary College and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The discussions from their meetings during their two-week stay will influence the curricula for courses on analytical epidemiology, and molecular biology of infectious diseases, which will … Continue reading
Africa / Animal Feeding / Dairying / Ethiopia / Forages / ILRI / Innovation Systems / IPMS / Livestock / Value Chains
Commercializing dairy and forage systems in Ethiopia: An innovation systems perspective
This working paper by Tesfaye Lemma, Ranjitha Puskur, Dirk Hoekstra and Azage Tegegne on Commercializing dairy and forage systems in Ethiopia: An innovation systems perspective presents and discusses the results of the analysis of Ethiopian dairy and forage innovation systems. Two factors triggered the need for understanding the innovation systems: Ethiopian dairy subsector has not … Continue reading
Animal Diseases / Animal Health / Cattle / East Africa / ECF / ILRI / Kenya / Livestock / Vaccines
Cattle disease vaccine launched 30 years after invention
An effective vaccine that languished, underused, for 30 years after its invention has finally been released commercially as a result of a new scheme for getting innovation into practice. The vaccine protects cattle against the deadly East Coast Fever (ECF), which kills two cows every minute — one million a year — causing economic losses … Continue reading
Africa / Climate Change / Drought / East Africa / ILRI / Insurance / Kenya / Livestock Systems / Markets
What do NASA, insurance giants and Kenya have in common?
Cows. (No, really.) Kenya’s International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) recently cracked the code on a formula that could change cattle-herders’ lives — or at least line their pockets. The single biggest risk cattlemen in Kenya’s dry north face is drought. If seasonal rains fail, grasses don’t grow. And if nothing green grows, the hundreds of … Continue reading
Africa / Animal Health / East Africa / Kenya / Pastoralism / Tanzania
Improving animal health in East Africa
In this podcast from the London International Development Centre, four vets describe the challenges affecting livestock within pastoralist communities in East Africa and explain an exciting project to monitor disease by using mobile phones. Dr Ezra Saitoti and Dr Paul Chacha, both field vets for the charity Vetaid, discuss how this innovative technology will help … Continue reading
Africa / CGIAR / Climate Change / East Africa / ILRI / Kenya
World scientists meet again over climate change in Kenya
Climate change in Africa and the world at large has impacted on many fronts resulting in drought and floods hence resulting in food shortage. Consequently, poverty levels have increased leading to low development among many developing nations. It is against this backdrop that leading agriculture and climate scientists, policymakers, farmers, and development experts from around … Continue reading
ILRI Clippings 