Category Archives: Geodata

An animal data safari at the 2018 CGIAR Big Data in Agriculture Convention
A4NH / Africa / AHH / Animal Diseases / Animal Health / BIGDATA / CGIAR / Communications / Data / East Africa / Event / Fish / FISHCRP / Geodata / ILRI / ILRIComms / LiveGene / Livestock / LIVESTOCKCRP / Pastoralism / Research / SLS

An animal data safari at the 2018 CGIAR Big Data in Agriculture Convention

Posted on by • Leave a comment

Last week, on 4 October – World Animal Day – ILRI’s Peter Ballantyne coordinated an interactive ‘mini-safari’ at the Big Data in Agriculture 2018 convention to showcase and demonstrate data-driven opportunities for and from livestock and fish ecosystems. Continue reading →

ILRI and Farm Ink ‘Facebook project’ to track livestock diseases in Kenya among five winners of research grants
Animal Diseases / Award / Communications / Data / Diagnostics / Disease Control / East Africa / Emerging Diseases / Event report / Geodata / ILRI / Kenya / Knowledge and Information / LiveGene / News clipping / Pro-Poor Livestock / Research / Zoonotic Diseases

ILRI and Farm Ink ‘Facebook project’ to track livestock diseases in Kenya among five winners of research grants

Posted on by • Leave a comment

The CGIAR Platform on Big Data in Agriculture has awarded five research proposals USD100,000 each during its inaugural convention 19–22 Sep 2017. Using Facebook to track the spread of livestock diseases and your smartphone to diagnose crop diseases in realtime, could soon be a reality thanks to a series of research grants awarded by the CGIAR Platform for Big Data in Agriculture. Continue reading →

Kenya risks losing 18 animal and bird species, and the ecosystem services they provide—Research report
Article / Biodiversity / East Africa / Environment / Geodata / ILRI / Kenya / Pastoralism / Policy / Rangelands / Science paper / SLS / Wildlife

Kenya risks losing 18 animal and bird species, and the ecosystem services they provide—Research report

Posted on by • Leave a comment

A group of scientists led by Dr Joseph Ogutu say Kenya risks losing 18 animal and bird species due to negligence. They include warthogs, lesser kudu, Thomson’s gazelle, eland, oryx, topi, hartebeest, impala, Grévy’s zebra, waterbuck, wildebeest, giraffe, gerenuk, Grant’s gazelle, buffalo, elephant, ostrich and Burchell’s zebra. Continue reading →

First map of smallholder farms in the developing world: They produce more than half the planet’s food calories
Agriculture / Article / Food Security / Geodata / Policy / Vulnerability

First map of smallholder farms in the developing world: They produce more than half the planet’s food calories

Posted on by • 2 Comments

Researchers at the University of Minnesota Institute on the Environment have used household census data to map smallholder farms in developing countries. Despite the fact that smallholder and family farms are crucial to feeding the planet, little is known regarding the location and size of smallholder farms. This study attempts to fill this knowledge gap. Continue reading →

Sheep genomics: ‘Sheep—A very long yarn’—Financial Times
Animal Breeding / Article / Central Asia / China / Genetics / Geodata / ILRI / LiveGene / LIVESTOCKFISH / Sheep

Sheep genomics: ‘Sheep—A very long yarn’—Financial Times

Posted on by • Leave a comment

‘Archaeologists have long known that people started to domesticate animals for food at the dawn of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent (the curve of land across the Middle East from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf) about 10,000 years ago. But details of the complex pathways through which improved livestock spread across Europe and Asia are only now emerging, as genomic technology makes it practical to compare the DNA of hundreds of animals across continents. . . . ‘A Chinese consortium led the sheep study in collaboration with the International Livestock Research Institute in Nairobi; it is published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution. Continue reading →

A4NH / Agri-Health / Article / Disease Control / Emerging Diseases / Epidemiology / FSZ / Geodata / Human Health / ILRI

Livestock in poor countries need drugs to stay alive and productive, but how to avoid the rise of ‘super bugs’?

Posted on by • 1 Comment

Developing-country livestock keepers need more and better drugs to keep their animals alive and productive, and there are increasing numbers of livestock in the South, where there is increasing use of antimicrobial drugs, and poor livestock keepers will be hurt the most by development in pathogens of antimicrobial resistance. So what’s needed to avoid ‘super bugs’ arising? A new PNAS paper has this to say. Continue reading →

Animal Production / Article / Cattle / Geodata / ILRI / Pigs / Poultry / SLS

Where do the world’s cattle, chickens, pigs live? Check out these cool maps (sheep and goats coming)

Posted on by • Leave a comment

This articles describes a fascinating set of 2014 maps available on a Livestock Geo-Wiki maintained by a multi-partner collaboration led by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB-LUBIES). Here you’ll find regularly revised and updated global maps of livestock distributions and production systems. Continue reading →

Article / Geodata / Goats / Livestock Systems / USA

Goats are ‘having a moment’–and making their mark in the United States

Posted on by • Leave a comment

There were 2,621,514 goats in the United States as of 2012, the year of the most recent USDA Agricultural Census. If America’s goats were their own state, its population would be larger than that of Wyoming, Vermont, D.C. and North Dakota — combined. This is what all those goats look like on a map. Continue reading →