Simple livestock production changes could help both farmers and the environment

Posted on 2 Nov 2010 by Susan MacMillan • 1 Comment

Typical smallholder livestock household in Berhampore Village, West Bengal, India (photo credit: ILRI/MacMillan). The following excerpts are from an article by Philip Thornton published yesterday (1 November 2010) in a Global Food Security Blog. Thornton cites a new paper he and his colleague Mario Herrero have published in a prestigious scientific journal that outlines how … Continue reading →

Africa / Asia / Biodiversity / CGIAR / Environment / Indigenous Breeds / Latin America

Crop and livestock agricultural research centres welcome Nagoya Protocol

Posted on 1 Nov 2010 by Susan MacMillan • 1 Comment

A herdsboy rides one of his small native mountain buffaloes in northern Viet Nam (photo credit: ILRI/Mann). Bioversity International and the other 14 centres of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), including the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), welcome the Nagoya Protocol that was hammered out at the eleventh hour in the central … Continue reading →

Africa / Biodiversity / East Africa / Environment / NRM / Tanzania / Wildlife / WLE

‘Great Migration’ or ‘Great Poverty’: Can wildlife and humans both thrive in the Greater Serengeti ecosystem?

Posted on 1 Nov 2010 by Susan MacMillan • Leave a comment

Savanna grasslands of East Africa (photo credit: ILRI/Elsworth). The New York Times reports on the new road the Tanzanian government is planning on building through the northern Serengeti. Is this road, which could disrupt one of the greatest wildlife spectacles on earth, an economic imperative and an ecological disaster? An environmental imperative and an economic … Continue reading →

Africa / Asia / Biodiversity / Environment / Indigenous Breeds / Latin America

Biodiversity: Nagoya talks stall on who should pay for it

Posted on 24 Oct 2010 by Susan MacMillan • 1 Comment

West Africa’s ancient (humpless) N’Dama and East Africa’s Improved Boran cattle are two of the continent’s important indigenous breeds (photo credit ILRI/Elsworth). The Economist reports in its current issue (21 October 2010) that things are not going so well at the 10th meeting of the Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity, … Continue reading →

Animal Production / Consumption / Environment / Livestock Systems

Is eating meat actually good for the planet?

Posted on 21 Oct 2010 by Susan MacMillan • 2 Comments

A young girl carries a slab of beef amongst traders in Goro town, Ethiopia, on market day. (Photo credit: ILRI/Mann) ‘The modest proposal may sound heretical to many eco-conscious eaters, but eating meat may actually be good for the planet after all. In his new book, Meat: A Benign Extravagance, Simon Fairlie aims to debunk … Continue reading →

Africa / Asia / Biodiversity / Environment / Indigenous Breeds / Latin America

We have just ten years to stem biodiversity losses, UN Nagoya meeting hears

Posted on 19 Oct 2010 by Susan MacMillan • Leave a comment

A native chicken of Mozambique (photo credit: ILRI/Mann). Richard Black, the environment reporter at the BBC, reports from Nagoya, Japan, yesterday (18 October 2010) that delegates at the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity will consider adopting new set of targets for 2020 that aim to tackle biodiversity loss. ‘The UN biodiversity convention meeting has … Continue reading →

Africa / Agriculture / Asia / Climate Change / Environment / Food Security / Latin America / NRM / WLE

Agriculture doing more of the same is agriculture ‘committing suicide’ – De Schutter

Posted on 17 Oct 2010 by Susan MacMillan • Leave a comment

Farmer Jocia De Sousa pounds maize for her daily meal in Muchamba Village, in Mozambique’s Tete Province (photo credit: ILRI/Mann). ‘Next stop for policymakers gathered in Rome for World Food Day should be Cancun, venue of the climate change summit,’ says Olivier De Schutter, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food, on the … Continue reading →

Africa / Asia / Biodiversity / Climate Change / Environment / Latin America

Greatest warming is in the North, but biggest impact on life is in the tropics

Posted on 8 Oct 2010 by Susan MacMillan • Leave a comment

Even though global warming is not increasing temperatures in the tropics as much as in the northern temperate zone and the Arctic, the metabolic effects on cold-blooded creatures that live there, such as this caiman lizard, will be greater than on creatures living farther north. (Credit: Tim Vickers/Wikimedia Commons) Newswise and the University of Washington … Continue reading →

Agriculture / Climate Change / Environment / Food Safety / Livestock

Livestock: Lengthening the shadow?

Posted on 6 Oct 2010 by ILRI Communications • Leave a comment

The environmental impact of meat is something of a well-done dish. Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and Sir Paul McCartney are just two of the public figures who have called on us all to eat less meat in order to curb the rate at which the world warms. The … Continue reading →

Agriculture / Environment / Farming Systems / Food Security / NRM / WLE

A viable food future?

Posted on 21 Sep 2010 by Peter Ballantyne (ILRI) • Leave a comment

What kind of food production can: drastically reduce poverty, reduce climate change and cool the planet, restore biodiversity, soil fertility and water resources, improve livelihoods and provide employment for billions of people, produce enough, good, and nutritious food for 9 billion people or more? Find out what the Development Fund (of Norway) thinks Continue reading →