Swiss cow (photo on Flickr by Medialoog). An opinion piece in the Sunday Nation (Kenya) notes that Switzerland and Kenya share a love of cows. ‘[T]he pride of place in Swiss agriculture is the cow. ‘I do not know any other culture outside Africa that has such a special relationship with cows. . . . … Continue reading
Slide in a presentation by Moses Nyabila on progress in the East African Dairy Development Project, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, in which Heifer International and ILRI are two partners; the presentation was made at a USAID Bureau for Food Security Webinar on 22 June 2011 in Washington, DC (slide credit: Heifer … Continue reading
As part of the Feed Enhancement for Ethiopian Development (FEED) project, ACDI/VOCA reports that Ethiopian cooperatives and consumers are fighting food insecurity and benefiting from new feed and dairy plants. In the project, ACDI/VOCA partnered with the Selale Dairy Producers Cooperative Union to make investments in local agricultural production to fill market gaps and improve … Continue reading
This brief from the East Africa Dairy Development Project highlights key results of a baseline survey of the economic performance analysis of dairy farms in project sites in Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda. The focus is on production and marketing aspects to establish a benchmark against which future economic performances of the project beneficiaries will be … Continue reading
This brief from the East Africa Dairy Development Project highlights key results of a baseline survey to analyze the level of preference for and use of artificial insemination (AI) in different project sites, and identifying constraints or problems hindering the optimal use of the service and possible solutions. Download the paper The East Africa Dairy … Continue reading
This brief from the East Africa Dairy Development Project highlights key results of a baseline survey to assess gaps in the delivery of animal health services in Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda. Specifically, the survey assessed the main animal health problems; preventive and curative measures used to control animal diseases; livestock farmers’ access to veterinary and … Continue reading
The February 2011 issue of the journal International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability contains a series of case studies from Africa on ‘sustainable agricultural intensification’ -“defined as producing more output from the same area of land while reducing the negative environmental impacts and at the same time increasing contributions to natural capital and the flow of environmental … Continue reading
Intensive camel farming, mechanised milking, camel milk chocolate, frothy camelcinos and strawberry-flavoured camel milk, all from a 2,000-strong herd of calm, friendly, well-behaved camels? Not quite the picture of Bedouin desert nostalgia you’d expect from a camel farm in the desert. Emirate’s Industry for Camel Milk and Products, better known as Camelicious, does things a … Continue reading
In Khulungira Village, in central Malawi, farmer Jinny Lemson, 32, started acquiring livestock with her husband ten years ago as an investment. Neither grew up with animals. First they bought chickens, then goats, then pigs, sheep, and cows. They also have ducks, cats and dogs. They grow all the feed on their farm. ‘Our life … Continue reading
SciDevNet this week carries a dairy genetics story. ‘Dairy farmers in East Africa could soon benefit from superior, affordable cattle breeds through a US$1 million research project. ‘The Dairy Genetics East Africa (DGEA) initiative aims to help smallholders take full advantage of the region’s booming dairy sector and improve their incomes by giving them access … Continue reading
ILRI Clippings 