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
Category Archives: CRPs
CGIAR Research Programs
The looming danger of diseases spread from farm animals to people–CNN
A CNN report this week on ‘The looming zoonotic danger’ makes use of some astounding figures developed by veterinary epidemiologist Delia Grace and her team at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), based in Kenya. ‘We’ve seen an unprecedented rise in infectious diseases in recent decades, 75 percent of which are “zoonotic,” meaning they come … Continue reading
40-year CGIAR history published: Lots of lessons for the ‘New CGIAR’
From CGIAR comes a new ‘look back’ at its evolution over 40 years. The book is titled The CGIAR at 40: Institutional Evolution of the World’s Premier Agricultural Research Network. It was written by Selçuk Özgediz, a Turkish national who was affiliated with CGIAR for 27 years, the last several years as management adviser to the CGIAR Secretariat … Continue reading
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
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
Livestock challenges and opportunities in Asia discussed at regional policy forum
Increasing livestock production to meet rapidly growing demands in a socially equitable and ecologically sustainable manner has become major challenge for the Asia-Pacific region. To discuss these challenges and to outline elements of a response, FAO, together with ILRI, IFPRI and other partners organized a Regional Policy Forum in Bangkok on 16-17 August 2012. Asia … Continue reading
Greening livestock
This report on Greening livestock: Assessing the potential of payment for environmental services in livestock inclusive agricultural production systems in developing countries was released by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in July 2012. Livestock serve as pathways out of poverty for poor smallholder farmers in the developing world. The production of livestock in mixed extensive and intensive … Continue reading
Animal-to-human diseases spreading with environmental changes–ILRI’s Delia Grace in The Guardian
Villagers watch on as a team restrains a small pig for blood sampling in Luang Prabang, Laos (photo credit: ILRI/Kate Blaszak). Delia Grace, an Irish veterinary epidemiologist and public health expert at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), says shifts in forest cover, agricultural practices, mining and reservoirs are thought to be affecting the transmission … Continue reading
The ecology of disease: NYT cites ILRI study in report on rising threat of wildlife diseases transmitted to people
Illustration by Olaf Hajek, in The New York Times Sunday Review: ‘The Ecology of disease’, 14 Jul 2012. Jim Robbins in The New York Times Sunday Review today writes about the ways breakdowns in the world’s ecosystems can ‘come back to haunt us in ways we know little about. . . . Multimedia Graphic Hot … Continue reading
Innovation platforms: Documenting experiences from the imGoats project and beyond
Innovation platforms are a complex and some would say a not-so-straightforward approach. Nevertheless, ILRI, other CGIAR centers and other partners are using this approach in various projects such as the Nile Basin Development Challenge, IMGoats and the recently-completed Fodder Adoption and Fodder Innovation projects. What are innovation platforms exactly? This poster gives some ideas. … Continue reading