CLEANED provides a rapid assessment that quantifies potential environmental impacts of planned livestock development interventions at multiple spatial scales. With a particular focus on developing countries, it requires participatory discussions with local communities to make sure that assessments are relevant to local agro-ecological landscapes and production systems. Continue reading
Category Archives: ILRI
Investigating fodder as a cash crop—a micro-enterprise for Indian dairy women
ILRI is working with small-scale women dairy producers who are members of a large women’s dairy cooperative in the semi-arid Telengana state of India—the Mulkanoor Women’s Dairy Cooperative. The are growing sorghum for a cash fodder crop. Continue reading
Irrigation boosts food security for Africa’s smallholder households
Findings from a review of a five-year irrigation project in Ethiopia, Ghana, and Tanzania show that all the men and women farmers who had adopted irrigation practices ‘were financially better off, more food secure and had more diverse diets’. Continue reading
Germany and ILRI intensify scientific cooperation to protect consumer health in Africa and Europe
With the participation of German research institutions and authorities, a workshop to improve human and animal health protection is taking place in Kenya from 27 Feb to 1 Mar 2018. The workshop is organized by ILRI, in Nairobi. Ten scientists from the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), Freie Universität (FU) Berlin and Friedrich-Loeffler-Institute (FLI) are participating on behalf of Germany. Continue reading
’If you care about agriculture, you care about livestock’—Bill Gates
According to Reuters, the Gates Foundation will pump $40m into research for higher-yielding dairy cows, as well as chickens that lay better quality eggs, livestock vaccines and ‘supercrops’ that can withstand droughts or disease. Continue reading
DFID/UKAid fund British, ILRI, African genetics research to advance African livestock development
During the visit Ms Mordaunt also announced plans to develop the Centre for Tropical Livestock Genetics and Health, which is based in both Edinburgh and Nairobi. The centre uses the most recent scientific advances in genetics and genomics that are being used by farmers in the UK and apply these to help smallholder dairy and poultry farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. Continue reading
Illegal land sales imperil unique treasure—by Jimmy Smith
The following opinion piece was written by Jimmy Smith, director general of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). and published in the Daily Nation (Kenya) on 15 January 2018.
The vibrant and rapidly growing local livestock sector contributes more than 40 per cent of revenues and employs half of the labour force in Kenya’s agriculture industry.
Now, the greedy actions of a few are threatening the future of many millions of people and decades of livestock research.
Also lost in the lawless Kapiti land grab is that the Ilri station is a vital wildlife corridor and dispersal area for Kenya’s Southern Conservancy Area. Continue reading
Jimmy Smith speaks in Australia on the pursuit of a ‘low-emissions cow’ and other livestock matters
‘Visiting Brisbane in November for the International Tropical Agriculture Conference for 2017, Director General of the International Livestock Research Institute Dr. Jimmy Smith discussed with Devex a range of new and exciting programs his organization is delivering to help create climate and disease resistant livestock for Africa.’ Continue reading
Thinking ‘beyond the farm’—On Germany’s longstanding commitment to agricultural research for development
Watch and listen to Stefan Schmitz, head of Food, Agriculture & Rural Development at Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), as he delivers a short (6-minute) filmed presentation at one of several linked collaborative events led by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) and held on the sidelines of the 23rd Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP23) to the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on 7 Nov 2017 in Bonn, Germany. Continue reading
While some animal-transmitted diseases of the poor are declining, other, mostly foodborne, diseases are on the rise
A new category of infectious diseases is thriving. Amid mostly stabilizing population growth, declining poverty, rising urbanization and emerging economic wealth, other zoonotic, largely foodborne diseases are emerging more quickly, keeping pace with human progress. . . . “While we’re getting rid of conditions that bring about some diseases, we’re also creating the conditions to give rise to new diseases or make other diseases worse,” [ILRI’s Delia Grace] said. Continue reading