Wildlife populations are declining severely in many protected areas and unprotected pastoral areas of Africa, researchers from leading universities and international research institutes said. Continue reading
CARE Ethiopia, CARE’s Adaptation Learning Programme (ALP), the CGIAR Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security programme (CCAFS) and the International Centre for Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE).will organize a learning event in Addis Ababa in September to exchange learning from experiences and evidence on climate change adaptation and resilience Continue reading
Scientists from Colorado State University have just put the final touches on an intersting tool called: G-Range. It’s a tool that can simulate generalized changes in rangelands through time, with simulations that may span a few to thousands of years. Continue reading
Livestock market in Wajir, where Kenya’s remote, never-before-insured livestock herders are getting their first protection from drought (photo credit: ILRI/Riccardo Gangale). ‘It was almost inevitable that the day chosen to make the first drought insurance payments in Wajir, in the arid north-east of Kenya, would be the same day the rains came. ‘Herders who lost sheep, cattle … Continue reading
Hassan Bashir is an astute entrepreneur, developing Africa’s first livestock insurance scheme to make payouts compliant with Islamic law, by bringing together Muslim scholars and number-crunching agricultural experts using NASA weather satellites. Continue reading
The world’s climate is changing rapidly and Africa will be severely affected by this, not only because of the effects on ecosystems but also because of the low adaptive capacity of communities due to poverty and lack of infrastructure, services, and appropriate policies to support adaptation strategies. A large share of Africa’s poor are dependent … Continue reading
Shamsa Kosar, a beneficiary of Takaful livestock insurance payouts made in Wajir, northern Kenya, in March 2014. This novel insurance was made possible by an ILRI index-based livestock insurance research project in northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia (photo credit: ILRI/Riccardo Gangale). ‘Takaful Insurance will pay livestock farmers about Sh500,000 for losses incurred during the December … Continue reading
I was travelling on a short flight from Nairobi to Mombasa yesterday and was glad to read about the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and its partners of the East Africa Dairy Development (EADD) Project in the Kenya Airways in-flight magazine in the seat pocket in front of me. A four-page full-feature article (see pages 100-104) … Continue reading
Goat herds return home at sunset in northern Kenya (photo credit: USAID/Donatella Lorch). ‘[Hussein] Ahmed, a pastoralist in Marsabit district in arid and semi-arid northern Kenya, lost all his animals in 2011 during one of the worst droughts in the region for over 60 years. . . . “Before that [I lost my animals] to cattle rustlers … Continue reading
Livestock farmers in Africa struggle to access good quality inputs, effective knowledge and fair markets. Regulation of the livestock input sector is very weak in Kenya, allowing unqualified people to open shops selling veterinary pharmaceuticals; many of which are counterfeit or under-strength. This leads to extensive misuse of drugs through poor diagnosis and administration of products. … Continue reading
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