Category Archives: CRPs

CGIAR Research Programs

ACGG / Animal Breeding / Animal Production / Animal Products / Chickens / East Africa / Ethiopia / Food Security / Gender / Indigenous Breeds / LIVESTOCKFISH / Nigeria / Nutrition / Research / Tanzania / West Africa / Women

Chickens from the ACGG project to the rescue of African women and families

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Women represent 70% of African smallholder chicken producers. Chickens can be a real way out of difficult livelihoods for these women and the households they attend to. A new project, SciDev.Net recently reported, is aiming at leveraging this potential in novel ways. Continue reading →

Animal Production / East Africa / ILRI / LiveGene / Markets / PIL / PIM / Research / RMG / Small Ruminants / Somalia

Knowledge of livestock grading and market participation among small ruminant producers in northern Somalia

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This article reports on market participation and producers’ knowledge of the indigenous livestock grading and pricing system applied to small ruminant marketing in Somaliland. Results confirmed the importance of small ruminants as sources of income in producer households. Knowledge about the grading system was generally widespread, and this was important for market participation. Factors that … Continue reading →

Impacts of innovation platforms on smallholder dairy production
Agriculture / Dairying / East Africa / HUMIDTROPICS / Impact Assessment / Innovation Systems / Livestock / PIL / Report / Research / Tanzania / Value Chains

Impacts of innovation platforms on smallholder dairy production

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The ‘innovation platforms approach’ is an effective way of establishing systematic interactions among stakeholders in the agricultural sector by stimulating technical, institutional and organizational innovations in agricultural value chains. Researchers from the University of Bonn, Germany, ILRI and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), tested the effectiveness of a dairy innovation platform that is trying to improve farmers’ access to cattle feeds in Tanzania. Continue reading →

‘Mixing it up’ down on the farm to better adapt to climate change
Africa / Article / CCAFS / CGIAR / Climate Change / Crop-Livestock / Farming Systems / ILRI / Livestock Systems / SLS

‘Mixing it up’ down on the farm to better adapt to climate change

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A recent perspective piece published in Nature Climate Change by researchers Philip Thornton and Mario Herrero suggests that we still know very little about how climate change will impact these mixed farms and especially the interactions between crops and livestock. This is alarming as mixed farming systems form the backbone of smallholder production in developing countries,producing over 90% of the world’s milk supply and 80% of the meat from ruminants. Continue reading →

Animal genetics project to review and improve Tanzania’s dairy herd for higher milk yields
Agriculture / Animal Breeding / Animal Production / Dairying / East Africa / Genetics / Indigenous Breeds / Livestock / LIVESTOCKFISH / Project / Research / Tanzania

Animal genetics project to review and improve Tanzania’s dairy herd for higher milk yields

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The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) is working with partners to understand the breed composition of dairy and indigenous cattle in Tanzania and to find the appropriate dairy cattle genotypes that will help farmers identify and keep dairy breeds that are appropriately matched to farms. Continue reading →

Sheep genomics: ‘Sheep—A very long yarn’—Financial Times
Animal Breeding / Article / Central Asia / China / Genetics / Geodata / ILRI / LiveGene / LIVESTOCKFISH / Sheep

Sheep genomics: ‘Sheep—A very long yarn’—Financial Times

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‘Archaeologists have long known that people started to domesticate animals for food at the dawn of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent (the curve of land across the Middle East from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf) about 10,000 years ago. But details of the complex pathways through which improved livestock spread across Europe and Asia are only now emerging, as genomic technology makes it practical to compare the DNA of hundreds of animals across continents. . . . ‘A Chinese consortium led the sheep study in collaboration with the International Livestock Research Institute in Nairobi; it is published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution. Continue reading →