Lester Brown on ‘the new geopolitics of food’

Posted on 1 May 2011 by Susan MacMillan • Leave a comment

Youth in window of a poor farm household in Milange, located in Zambezia, the most populous province of Mozambique (photo credit: ILRI/Mann). Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, writes in the May/June issue of Foreign Policy on ‘The New Geopolitics of Food: From the Middle East to Madagascar, high prices are spawning land grabs … Continue reading →

Animal Production / Climate Change / Environment

‘Livestock’s Long Shadow’ rebutted: On the dangers of comparing apples and oranges – and lumping production practices of rich and poor

Posted on 17 Apr 2011 by Susan MacMillan • Leave a comment

The 2006 publication of Livestock’s Long Shadow by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has stirred considerable controversy. Here is the latest rebuttal, showing the fallacy of treating all the world’s animal production as the same kind of ‘beast’. ‘How long is your shadow? The answer, of course, depends, and differs whether you are standing … Continue reading →

Africa / Climate Change / Drought / East Africa / Environment / ILRI / Impact Assessment / Kenya / Livelihoods / Research

Impacts of the Arid Lands Resource Management Project on livelihoods and vulnerability in Kenya

Posted on 15 Apr 2011 by Zerihun Sewunet • Leave a comment

This Research report by Nancy Johnson and Ayago Wambile on The impacts of the Arid Lands Resource Management Project (ALRMPII) on livelihoods and vulnerability in the arid and semi-arid lands of Kenya was released on 04 April, 2011. There is an urgent need for new approaches and effective models for managing risk and promoting sustainable … Continue reading →

Animal Breeding / Biotechnology / Canada / Environment / Fish / Food Security / North America / Pigs / Research

Eco-friendly GM pigs under development in Ontario

Posted on 4 Apr 2011 by Susan MacMillan • Leave a comment

Min piglets at the experimental station at the Institute for Animal Science, in Beijing, China (photo credit: ILRI/Mann). Jeremy Cooke of the BBC reports in this video on a genetically modified pig, dubbed ‘Enviro-Pig’, being developed in Ontario that may be among the first of GM farm animals developed for human consumption. (Salmon genetically modified … Continue reading →

Africa / Agriculture / Climate Change / Crop residues / Environment / Food Security

Climate change, food security and sustainable development

Posted on 18 Mar 2011 by ILRI Communications • Leave a comment

Expectations were high when the United Nations General Assembly declared 2011 as “International Year of Forest,” having in mind the social, economic and cultural roles that the forests play in communities around the world in the context of global warming, climate change and agricultural development. As such, it was with strong determination that members of … Continue reading →

Animal Production / Environment / Europe / Livestock

EU publishes study on livestock emissions

Posted on 24 Feb 2011 by Peter Ballantyne (ILRI) • Leave a comment

A study on the ‘evaluation of the livestock sector’s contribution to the EU greenhouse gas emissions’ was commissioned by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. It estimates emissions from all livestock sectors in Europe. UK National Farmers Union Director of Policy Martin Haworth said: “This recent evaluation from the EU builds upon previous … Continue reading →

Climate Change / Environment

Bombshell: The time to start controlling global warming ‘was yesterday’

Posted on 22 Feb 2011 by Susan MacMillan • Leave a comment

A new study projects that half the world’s land-based permafrost will vanish by mid-century on our current greenhouse gas emissions path, turning today’s Arctic carbon into a huge carbon source by the 2020s, at which time the North Pole is expected to be largely ice-free. The thaw and decay of permafrost carbon is irreversible. What … Continue reading →

Animal Production / Climate Change / Environment / Livestock Systems

Research shows livestock industry is ‘green’

Posted on 18 Feb 2011 by Peter Ballantyne (ILRI) • 1 Comment

Livestock agriculture is green. It is time the industry stopped allowing itself to be pushed around and start using science-based information to tell what it is doing for the world, according to speakers at the recent Southwest Beef Symposium in Amarillo. Confined cattle feeding is a necessary industry to feed the growing population and also … Continue reading →

Agriculture / Drought / Environment / Food Security

Severe weather events are behind soaring food prices–Paul Krugman

Posted on 8 Feb 2011 by Susan MacMillan • Leave a comment

Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman argues in the New York Times recently that it is severe weather events, exactly the kind of thing we’d expect to see with climate change, that have disrupted global agricultural food production, causing world food prices to hit a record high in January (2011). ‘We’re in the midst of a global food … Continue reading →

Animal Production / Animal Products / Consumption / Environment

Scientists grow ‘cultured’ meat in labs

Posted on 1 Feb 2011 by Susan MacMillan • Leave a comment

Meat sellers in Maputo’s traditional market: Will ‘cultured’ meat grown in vats ever replace meat grown on the hoof in developing countries? (photo credit: ILRI/Mann). ‘In a small laboratory on an upper floor of the basic science building at the Medical University of South Carolina, Vladimir Mironov, M.D., Ph.D., has been working for a decade … Continue reading →