Category Archives: Food Safety

Under SPS and markets, we work on sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) issues, growing market requirements for food safety and quality that constrain market access by smallholders (including appropriate development of smallholder dairy markets).

How viable are schemes to give poor people making and selling ‘informal’ milk greater market access?
A4NH / AHH / Buffalo / Cattle / Consumption / Dairying / East Africa / Food Safety / Food Security / Human Health / ILRI / India / Kenya / Livelihoods / Markets / Nutrition / Policy / Pro-Poor Livestock / Report / South Asia / Tanzania / Trade / Value Chains

How viable are schemes to give poor people making and selling ‘informal’ milk greater market access?

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A new report from ILRI and IIED reviews the effectiveness of training and certification schemes designed to give small-scale ‘informal’ sellers of ‘raw’ and/or boiled or informally pasteurized milk and (in India) milk sweets greater market access in East Africa and South Asia. The report reviews such schemes in Kenya and Tanzania and in the state of Assam, in northwestern India. In all three countries, the informal sector dominates dairy marketing and trade and informal milk production and trade contribute significantly to the employment, livelihoods and nutrition of many millions of poor people. Continue reading →

More on why outright banning of ‘wet markets’ (while ‘giving virologists the heebie-jeebies’) won’t work
Advocacy / Africa / Agri-Health / AHH / Animal Products / Asia / China / Consumption / COVID19 / Food Safety / Human Health / ILRI / Markets / News clipping / OneHealth / Policy / Pro-Poor Livestock / Uganda / Zoonotic Diseases

More on why outright banning of ‘wet markets’ (while ‘giving virologists the heebie-jeebies’) won’t work

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Many virologists do not want to see a blanket ban on wet markets. Rather, they prefer a more nuanced approach and more narrow regulation to control their most dangerous aspects. To understand why, it helps to unpick what wet markets are, and their role in the feeding of billions of people. Continue reading →

Wildlife markets in the pandemic: Prohibit or preserve them? Ban or promote them?
Advocacy / Agri-Health / AHH / AMR / Animal Products / Consumption / COVID19 / Directorate / Disease Control / Emerging Diseases / Environment / Food Safety / Food Security / Human Health / ILRI / Markets / Nutrition / OneHealth / Opinion piece / Policy / Pro-Poor Livestock / Wildlife / Zoonotic Diseases

Wildlife markets in the pandemic: Prohibit or preserve them? Ban or promote them?

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ILRI and UN experts say preserve and protect the world’s ‘informal markets’ AND invest and enhance these markets, which provide billions of people
with food and incomes. Continue reading →

FOOD SAFETY: In support the traditional—and essential—food markets of low-income countries
A4NH / Advocacy / Agri-Health / AHH / Article / Disease Control / Event / Food Safety / Human Health / ILRI / Markets / Policy / Southeast Asia / Vietnam

FOOD SAFETY: In support the traditional—and essential—food markets of low-income countries

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On this World Food Safety Day (7 June 2020), staff of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) make the case for supporting traditional markets to improve food safety. Continue reading →

FOOD SAFETY: A point of departure for preventing diseases originating in the world’s food systems
A4NH / Advocacy / Agri-Health / AHH / Article / COVID19 / Disease Control / Emerging Diseases / Environment / Event / Food Safety / Human Health / ILRI / Zoonotic Diseases

FOOD SAFETY: A point of departure for preventing diseases originating in the world’s food systems

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To mark World Food Safety Day today, 7 June 2010, three of the world’s leading food safety experts investigate opportunities for building back better food systems and nutrition in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Continue reading →

Don’t believe the scare stories, Kenyan milk is a big success
Advocacy / Aflatoxins / Africa / Cattle / Communications / Consumption / Dairying / East Africa / Food Safety / Kenya / News clipping / Opinion piece / Research

Don’t believe the scare stories, Kenyan milk is a big success

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We sent the following note to Parents Africa magazine, which published an unfortunately alarmist article recently based on research conducted by ILRI scientists. A recent article in Parents Africa magazine reaches some unduly alarming conclusions about the milk sold in Nairobi—and attributes them to research published by scientists here at the International Livestock Research Institute … Continue reading →

Kenyan agriculturist Su Kahumbu on the need for ‘pro-smallholder’ and ‘pro-soil’ policies
Advocacy / Agri-Health / Agriculture / Animal Products / Dairying / East Africa / Extension / Food Safety / Kenya / Livelihoods / Opinion piece / Policy / Pro-Poor Livestock / Soils

Kenyan agriculturist Su Kahumbu on the need for ‘pro-smallholder’ and ‘pro-soil’ policies

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In an opinion piece she published in the current issue of the Daily Nation newspaper’s ‘Seeds of Gold’ pull-out magazine, Kenyan agriculturist and iCow entrepreneur Su Kahumbu takes issue with two new dairy and crop laws being considered by the Kenya government. Continue reading →

‘We can’t modernize, regulate or train our way to food safety in Africa’—ILRI epidemiologist Silvia Alonso
A4NH / Advocacy / Aflatoxins / Africa / Agri-Health / AHH / Animal Products / Consumption / Food Safety / Human Health / ILRI / Markets / Opinion piece / Policy / Presentation / Pro-Poor Livestock

‘We can’t modernize, regulate or train our way to food safety in Africa’—ILRI epidemiologist Silvia Alonso

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Veterinary epidemiologist Silvia Alonso works at ILRI, where she contributes to the food safety flagship of the CGIAR Research Program for Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH), which is led by ILRI’s sister organization IFPRI. Alonso had some eye-popping things to say about food safety in Africa at the ‘First FAO/WHO/AU International Food Safety’ conference, held in Addis Ababa, 12–13 Feb 2019. Continue reading →

Why foodborne disease is becoming a development priority—and is a solvable problem
A4NH / Advocacy / Agri-Health / AHH / Food Safety / Human Health / ILRI / Opinion piece

Why foodborne disease is becoming a development priority—and is a solvable problem

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In the past, foodborne disease was rarely seen as a development priority. This all changed when WHO published the first assessment of the global burden of foodborne disease. Covering just 31 hazards, the study found the health burden was comparable to that of HIV-AIDS, malaria or tuberculosis. Continue reading →