Category Archives: Environment

Animal Production / Article / CCAFS / Climate Change / Environment / Geodata / ILRI / ILRIComms / Intensification / Livestock Systems / Policy / SLS

Research shows vast differences in livestock systems, diets and emissions–FCRN on PNAS paper

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Tara Garnet, of the Food Climate Research Network (FCRN), at Oxford University, recently highlighted a paper published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The paper, Biomass use, production, feed efficiencies, and greenhouse gas emissions from global livestock systems, is written by livestock scientists at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI, Kenya) and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO, Australia). Continue reading →

ASSP / East Africa / Environment / Ethiopia / Extension / Food Security / Gender / ILRI / ILRIComms / Innovation Systems / Livelihoods / Livestock-Water / NRM / Participation / Research / Water / WLE

Power, partnership and participation: Nile Basin Development Challenge in summary

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The CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF) just published a summary of land and water research, lessons and outcomes generated by the Nile Basin Development Challenge in Ethiopia. Continue reading →

Animal Production / Article / CCAFS / Climate Change / Environment / Food Security / ILRI / ILRIComms / Kenya / Livestock Systems / Policy / SLS

What livestock eat (and don’t eat) determines how productive, and efficient, they are–PNAS study

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Napier grass (aka ‘elephant grass’), a major feed supplement for dairy cows and other ruminant animals in Kenya (photo credit: Jeff Haskins). Even though research has shown that [greenhouse gas] GHG emissions from the Western world far outweigh those from the developing world, livestock keeping methods in Africa are increasingly becoming a key subject. Europe, … Continue reading →

ASSP / Environment / HUMIDTROPICS / ILRI / Innovation Systems / NRM / Report / Research / SLS

Innovation platforms and natural resources management

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Innovation platforms are widely used in agricultural research to connect different stakeholders to achieve common goals. This eleventh brief explains how innovation platforms can support work on natural resources management issues that typically require joint action across scale and over time.

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Environment / Intensification / Livestock / Livestock Systems

Sustainable livestock: What are the options?

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January’s Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA) was the venue for a panel session on sustainable livestock organized as part of the Global Agenda for Sustainable Livestock. The session was run as a facilitated discussion, engaging both a panel of five experts and the 80 or so participants attending. Following panelist interventions, the discussion … Continue reading →

Article / CCAFS / Environment / Food Security / ILRI / ILRIComms

Future of (sustainable) livestock production: Efficient, but measured–Time Magazine on major new ILRI study

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Ethiopian livestock-keeper and her children (photo credit: ILRI/Apollo Habtamu). Livestock production may have a bigger impact on the planet than anything else. A new study from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) shows how the effects vary from country to country — and points the way toward a more sustainable future. Below, Time Magazine‘s senior … Continue reading →

ASSP / CCAFS / Climate Change / Environment / FFD / ILRI / ILRIComms / Intensification / Report

Reducing climate change through livestock: FAO report

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A farm in Bangladesh with just enough room for one cow, which, adequately fed and cared for, efficiently produces enough milk for household consumption and manure for maintaining a small garden plot and fish pond (photo on Flickr by WorldFish). ‘Farmers could earn more and protect the environment by using technologies and practices that reduce … Continue reading →

Agriculture / Environment / Event / Food Security / ILRI / ILRIComms / Opinion piece / Pro-Poor Livestock

World Food Day: On the central, enduring (and other) roles of smallholders in feeding the world (in 12 tweets/images)

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We’re celebrating this World Food Day (#WFD2013) journalist Mark Bittman in a New York Times opinion piece, How to Feed the World (14 Oct 2013), on the central and enduring value of smallholder farming in feeding the world sustainably. Read the whole article. It’s very good. We’ve added some of our favourite artworks, all (kindly) made … Continue reading →

Award / CCAFS / Central Asia / China / Climate Change / Environment / Germany / ILRI / ILRIComms / Sheep / SLS / Staff

Klaus Butterbach-Bahl and ecosystems-climate research team win Stifterverband Science Award–Schrödinger Prize

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Sheep graze pasture in Inner Mongolia; a long-term research study shows that large-area grazing on steppes actually reduces, rather than increases, nitrous oxide emissions into the atmosphere (photo credit: ILRI/Stevie Mann). Five ecosystems-climate researchers, including Klaus Butterbach-Bahl, of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), have been honoured for outstanding interdisciplinary research on nitrous oxide emissions. Butterbach-Bahl … Continue reading →

Agriculture / Animal Feeding / Colombia / Environment / Forages / ILRIComms / Latin America / LIVESTOCKFISH / Project

Making grass greener: CIAT breeds tropical pasture that suppresses greenhouse gas emissions

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Guillermo Sotelo of CIAT’s entomology team, working with brachiaria grass in a greenhouse at the institution’s headquarters in Colombia (picture credit: CIAT/Neil Palmer). ‘. . . On 13 September, researchers announced that they have bred a tropical pasture grass that can significantly suppress greenhouse-gas emissions. The team, from the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) … Continue reading →