The following opinion piece by World Bank livestock advisor François Le Gall was published last week on the launch of an advocacy brief by an alliance of leading organizations in global livestock issues. Chaired by Le Gall, the Livestock Global Alliance aims to bring the often overlooked livestock sector to the forefront of solutions to global development challenges such as food security, health, economic growth and climate change. Continue reading
Category Archives: Livestock Systems
Goat business is big business in India’s Odisha State—Bishnupada Sethi
Inaugurating a day-long seminar on Public-Private-Producer-Partnership for small ruminant development in Odisha, Sethi said consultations with experts, policy analysts and the cross-section of stakeholders including farmers are on to finalise the Odisha Small Animal Development Policy. Continue reading
Manure: A valuable resource—a 3-part webinar on a ‘win-win-win-win-win’ coming this February
The Livestock and Manure Management project of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and Wageningen University & Research Centre (Wageningen UR) invite you to join a series of three webinars—on Wednesdays, 3, 17 and 24 Feb 2016—on ‘Manure: a valuable resource’. Continue reading
‘Mixing it up’ down on the farm to better adapt to climate change
A recent perspective piece published in Nature Climate Change by researchers Philip Thornton and Mario Herrero suggests that we still know very little about how climate change will impact these mixed farms and especially the interactions between crops and livestock. This is alarming as mixed farming systems form the backbone of smallholder production in developing countries,producing over 90% of the world’s milk supply and 80% of the meat from ruminants. Continue reading
Tanzania livestock modernization initiative to improve livelihoods of smallholders and boost food security
A recently unveiled Tanzania Livestock Modernization Initiative (TLMI) is expected to contribute to the improvement of the livelihoods of smallholder livestock farmers in the country and increase their contribution to national food security.
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Beef feedlots: Polluters or efficient use of resources?
There’s been an interesting debate published in the Wall Street Journal this week on whether feedlot beef is bad for the environment. Robert Martin, director of the Food System Policy Program at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, says the pollution spreads for miles. Jude Capper, a livestock sustainability expert based in Britain, says the beef industry keeps things safe Continue reading
‘White gold’ improves lives of women in western Tanzania
Access to a reliable dairy market and good market prices of milk has transformed the lives of dairy farmers in Kahama District in Tanzania’s Lake zone of Shinyanga. Continue reading
Biogas changes lives of dairy farmers in southern Tanzania
Use of biogas in the Iringa region of Tanzania is helping to address poverty and reduce dependency of forests in an initiative promoting the biological diversity, ecological functions and sustainable use of natural resources in the Eastern Arc Mountains.
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Goats are ‘having a moment’–and making their mark in the United States
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
How to satisfy our appetite for meat without ruining the planet
The human need for food will eventually come to be met in the developing world, but the human appetite for diets that are rich in fish, meat and animal products may be more difficult to satisfy. Continue reading