Category Archives: Environment

Agriculture / CCAFS / CGIAR / Climate Change / East Africa / Environment / Geodata / ILRI / ILRIComms / Interview / Kenya / SLS

Greenhouse gases produced by Kenyan farmers: Project to measure village emission levels

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Typical smallholder’s farm in Busia, in western Kenya, where farmers mix crop growing with livestock raising (photo credit: ILRI/Pye-Smith). A team of scientists is collecting information on the level of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions produced by smallholder farmers. Scientists from CGIAR centres under the Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) said the project’s key … Continue reading →

Agriculture / Animal Production / CGIAR / Environment / Farming Systems / Gender / Humid Tropics / HUMIDTROPICS / Innovation Systems / Livelihoods / PIL / Southeast Asia / Vietnam

Northwest Vietnam situational analysis shapes up for CGIAR Humidtropics Research Program

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On 15 and 16 August 2013 the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) organized the launch meeting for situational analysis work in northwest Vietnam of the CGIAR Humidtropics research program. Jo Cadilhon represented the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in the meeting and helped facilitate the process. He reports on the outcomes. Humidtropics aims to help poor farm families, … Continue reading →

Agriculture / BecA / Environment / ILRIComms / Project

Draft report on sustainable agriculture and food systems available for public comment

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The Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), a global initiative for the United Nations, is looking for feedback on their draft report ‘Solutions for Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems’ from organizations, academics, researchers, civil society, the private sector, government officials and the general public. The SDSN’s Thematic Group on Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems released a … Continue reading →

Directorate / East Africa / Environment / Event / Food Security / ILRI / Kenya / Policy / Pro-Poor Livestock / Southern Africa

Invest in Africa’s fast-growing livestock sector: The time is now, says ILRI’s Jimmy Smith

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Florence Chepkirui, a blind dairy farmer in Saoset village in Kenya’s Bomet District (photo credit: ILRI/Paul Karaimu). The director general of the International Livestock Institute (ILRI) has called for significant investments in the development of Africa’s livestock sector, which he said is rapidly growing. Jimmy Smith told the told participants of a recent three-day Africa … Continue reading →

Agriculture / Biodiversity / Environment / Food Security / Report

World’s 2.5 billion smallholder farmers are key to global food security and sustainability

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Ezekial Rop, a smallholder farmer in Moiben, Kenya (photo credit: Jeff Haskins). ‘Supporting smallholder farmers to play a greater role in food production and natural resource stewardship is one of the quickest ways to lift over one billion people out of poverty and sustainably nourish a growing world population, a new United Nations report released … Continue reading →

Consumption / Crop-Livestock / Environment / Farming Systems / Film and video / Interview / Opinion piece / Presentation

Conscious carnivores: Bill Gates says the meat market is ripe for reinvention in the form of ‘meat analogues’

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American food writer and activist Michael Pollan (photo on Flickr by PopTech). The meat market, says Bill Gates, is ripe for reinvention. The market is growing fast to meet rising demands for animal-source foods throughout much of the developing world, particularly China and India and other countries with fast-growing economies. Food scientists are creating healthful … Continue reading →

Asia / CCAFS / CGIAR / China / Climate Change / Drylands / East Africa / Environment / Food Security / ILRI / India / Kenya / Pastoralism / Policy / Report / South Asia

Reframing the pastoral narrative: Ancient mobile herding strategies to make a comeback in a hotter world

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Fulani boy in Niger herds his family’s animals (photo credit: ILRI/Stevie Mann). Mobility to unlock scattered food, feed, water and other scarce and scattered essential resources is a human strategy as old as humankind itself—and one that remains key for pastoral livestock herders the world over. As the world warms and its natural resources become ever scarcer, it would … Continue reading →

Environment / Event / ILRI / Livestock-Water / USA / Water

Water ‘hoofprint’ of farm animals differs greatly by region and livestock production system–and can be reduced

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Village women wash clothes and cattle are watered at a pond in Rajasthan, India (photo credit: ILRI/Stevie Mann). The fifth annual Water for Food Conference was held 5–8 May 2013 in Lincoln, Nebraska, USA, hosted by the University of Nebraska’s Robert B. Daugherty Water for Food Institute and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and sponsored … Continue reading →

Biotechnology / Environment / Food Security / Genetics / Opinion piece / Policy / USA

Greening our meat: A vegan conservationist speaks out, and considerately, on controversial food issues

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Vegan and conservationist Mark Tercek, president and CEO of The Nature Conservancy, the largest environmental non-profit organization in the Americas, had an interesting response this week to a question about eating meat and genetically modified foods—two of the most durable of the hot ‘foodie’ topics of the North, with vegetarian and carnivore consumers, organic and high-tech … Continue reading →

Agriculture / Article / Asia / Biotechnology / Environment / Genetics / ILRI / India / North America / Seeds / USA

‘Nature’ takes a hard look at the ‘messy middle ground’ — the ‘difficult adolescence’ — of GM crops

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Cover of a special issue of ‘Nature’ on GMOs, 2 May 2013. The leading British science journal Nature has published a special issue on GM crops: Promise and reality  (2 May 2013). This hub of updated science-based information on GM crops includes feature news stories, commentaries, a podcast and more. ‘Foreign genes were successfully introduced into … Continue reading →