Blurring the boundary between sci-fi and documentary, Franny Armstrong’s The Age of Stupid peers back in time from a climate crisis-wracked 2055 to lament our current inaction on the mother of all conflicts: The war on terra. The film premieres globally on Monday. “We’re not at war at the moment,” explains Piers Guy, a British … Continue reading
Category Archives: Environment
Africa / Agriculture / Drought / East Africa / Environment / Food Security / Kenya
Pastoralists: moving with the times?
With children severely malnourished, animals weak or dying, and people struggling to find water, exceptionally dry conditions in the Horn of Africa have added to the cumulative effect of three to four consecutive seasons of poor or failed rains. Severe shortages of pasture and water, combined with high food prices, have left an estimated 24 … Continue reading
Africa / Agriculture / Animal Diseases / Climate Change / Crop-Livestock / Drought / Drylands / DRYLANDSCRP / ECF / Environment / Food Security / ILRI / Kenya / Livestock Systems / Pastoralism / Research / Vulnerability
Livestock research addresses issues underlying the pastoral crisis in the Horn of Africa
Things Fall Apart Things have quickly fallen apart in this particular drought in the Horn’s vast drylands because of a toxic mix of underlying factors. Land Use Among the things not being redressed are land-use policies and practices that fail to account for population increases and thus are restricting herders to ever smaller, drier and … Continue reading
The spread of new diseases: The climate connection
As humans increasingly encroach on forested lands and as temperatures rise, the transmission of disease from animals and insects to people is growing. Now a new field, known as “conservation medicine,” is exploring how ecosystem disturbance and changing interactions between wildlife and humans can lead to the spread of new pathogens. Look up into the … Continue reading
Global hunger worsening, warns UN
Targets to cut the number of hungry people in the world will not be met without greater international effort, UN food agencies have warned. The UN’s annual report on global food security confirms that more than one billion people – a sixth of the world’s population – are undernourished. It says the number of hungry … Continue reading
Drought / East Africa / Environment / Kenya
A catastrophe is looming
The drought cycle in east Africa has been contracting sharply. Rains used to fail every nine or ten years. Then the cycle seemed to go down to five years. Now, it seems, the region faces drought every two or three years. The production of Kenyan maize, the country’s staple, is likely to drop by one-third, … Continue reading
What could 4 degree warming increase mean for the world?
The international conference at Oxford University dubbed “4 degrees and beyond” is the first of its kind to consider the global consequences of climate change beyond 2 degrees Celcius. Amongst the speakers include Dr. Philip Thornton of the International Livestock Research Instutite, speaking on sub-Saharan agriculture. “A leading climate scientist has presented new research findings … Continue reading
Putting cattle on a diet to curb climate change
A recent article in CNN reports that “dietary additives are showing great signs in reducing methane from cows.” Much has been made of the problem of livestock emissions of methane — a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 — but a solution might be just around the corner. Room here for both of us? … Continue reading
Money will not end Africa’s famine
There was a time in Africa when elders would “talk” to the drought and negotiate their way into receiving rainfall. With their unique understanding of causation, elders would either sacrifice a black sheep or ask a virgin girl to bathe in a lake in order to draw the attention of the rain gods. Would that … Continue reading
Farewell to Dr Norman Borlaug
With enormous sadness, the CIMMYT community and its many valued partners and supporters gather in spirit to mourn the passing of Dr. Norman Borlaug, father of the Green Revolution, 1970 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, former CIMMYT wheat scientist, and the man whose work saved millions from starvation. Borlaug led a group of foreign scientists who … Continue reading
ILRI Clippings 