Tom Olaka, a community animal health worker in Karamajong, northern Uganda, was part of a vaccination campaign in remote areas of the Horn of Africa that drove the cattle plague rinderpest to extinction in 2010 (photo credit: Christine Jost). Fred Pearce writes in New Scientist about How African herders rid the planet of a disease, … Continue reading
ILRI veterinary epidemiologist Jeff Mariner presents his research at a meeting of the World Animal Health Organisation (OIE) (photo credit: OIE). Lauren Everitt of AllAfrica interviewed Jeffrey Mariner, a scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Nairobi, Kenya, about a current article he co-authored in Science (13 Sep 2012) on lessons learned in the eradication … Continue reading
Innovation platforms are a complex and some would say a not-so-straightforward approach. Nevertheless, ILRI, other CGIAR centers and other partners are using this approach in various projects such as the Nile Basin Development Challenge, IMGoats and the recently-completed Fodder Adoption and Fodder Innovation projects. What are innovation platforms exactly? This poster gives some ideas. … Continue reading
If only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the tropical midday sun, what shall we say of Americans in Alabama and Kenya setting out to learn from, and support, sales of livestock in the hot and drying badlands extending across the Horn of Africa? This is what Peter Little, of Emory University, and Polly … Continue reading
Goat and people share a road in Goma, DRC (photo on Flickr by Robert Guerra). Voice of America is reporting on a new livestock epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The highly contagious viral disease is known as ‘peste des petits ruminants’, or PPR for short, sometimes as ‘ovine rinderpest’, and more … Continue reading
Aurochs were the ancestors of domestic cattle (photo on Flickr by Marcus Sümnick). Lucas Brouwers, in a blog on Scientific American, has picked up on an interesting genetics study conducted at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), in Nairobi, Kenya, which targets a cattle disease known as contagious bovine pleuropneumonia (or CBPP for short). The study … Continue reading
Karamojang woman and child in Kotido, Uganda (photo on Flickr by Courtney Chance). An interesting report on ‘milk matters’ has been produced by the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University, USA, in collaboration with Save the Children. It looks at milk in children’s diets and household livelihoods among the Karamojang, a pastoral tribe in northeastern … Continue reading
Although livestock play a central role in rural development in West Africa, traditional livestock systems have high death rates, low reproductive rates and low offtake rates. Furthermore, the presence of trypanosome-infected tsetse flies in the sub-humid and humid areas hurts the potential for livestock production. The region’s endemic ruminant livestock, however, are highly adapted to … Continue reading
In Ethiopia, sheep and goats have traditionally served as a means of ready cash and a reserve against economic and agricultural production hardship. However, the proximity of Ethiopia to large Middle Eastern markets demanding export quality sheep and goat carcasses and an increase in the domestic demand for small ruminant meat is leading to a … Continue reading
ILRI scientist Joerg Jores (right) tells German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who visited the ILRI-BecA labs in July 2011, about his livestock disease research (photo credit: ILRI/Njoroge). ‘Owning large livestock is like money in the bank for African farmers, but major diseases significantly threaten their future. ‘Among these are [peste des petits ruminants], a viral disease … Continue reading
ILRI Clippings 