A new report from ILRI and IIED reviews the effectiveness of training and certification schemes designed to give small-scale ‘informal’ sellers of ‘raw’ and/or boiled or informally pasteurized milk and (in India) milk sweets greater market access in East Africa and South Asia. The report reviews such schemes in Kenya and Tanzania and in the state of Assam, in northwestern India. In all three countries, the informal sector dominates dairy marketing and trade and informal milk production and trade contribute significantly to the employment, livelihoods and nutrition of many millions of poor people. Continue reading
Category Archives: Pro-Poor Livestock
‘Genomic time travel’ for better African cattle—New paper describes a ‘rich mosaic of traits’ and an ‘evolutionary jolt’
‘Scientists in Nairobi have discovered a new set of genetic markers in African cattle that signal beneficial characteristics, with a view to harnessing them for future generations.’—Nature Genetics Continue reading
More on why outright banning of ‘wet markets’ (while ‘giving virologists the heebie-jeebies’) won’t work
Many virologists do not want to see a blanket ban on wet markets. Rather, they prefer a more nuanced approach and more narrow regulation to control their most dangerous aspects. To understand why, it helps to unpick what wet markets are, and their role in the feeding of billions of people. Continue reading
Ivan Morrison, of the University of Edinburgh, formerly of ILRAD, awarded the inaugural Plowright Prize for his lifelong research towards a vaccine for East Coast fever
RCVS Knowledge, the charity partner of the UK’s Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, has awarded its inaugural Plowright Prize to Professor William Ivan Morrison of the University of Edinburgh for his research combating the cattle disease East Coast fever. Ivan Morrison started his career at ILRAD, a predecessor of ILRI, where he worked from 1975 to 1990, leading, and building up, ILRAD’s research program on East Coast fever for many of those years. Continue reading
Wildlife markets in the pandemic: Prohibit or preserve them? Ban or promote them?
ILRI and UN experts say preserve and protect the world’s ‘informal markets’ AND invest and enhance these markets, which provide billions of people
with food and incomes. Continue reading
A call for a holistic view of meat eating by Lawrence Haddad, of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition
GAIN’s Lawrence Haddad explains why ‘eating less meat’ is not a simple issue. Continue reading
Meat, milk and more for Africa: Four countries with successful livestock policy innovations to emulate
A newly published Malabo Montpellier Panel report, Meat, Milk & More: Policy innovations to shepherd inclusive and sustainable livestock systems in Africa, ‘highlights options for sustainably promoting growth in the livestock sector, drawing from what four African countries—Ethiopia, Mali, South Africa, and Uganda—have done successfully in terms of institutional and policy innovation as well as programmatic interventions. Continue reading
Scientists stress need, amid COVID-19, to maintain focus on everyday zoonotic diseases of the world’s poor
Most diseases that transmit from animals to humans (zoonoses) are not of the headline-grabbing, world-stopping variety write Eric Fèvre and Naomi Marks. They are an everyday reality for millions of people whose lives are quietly blighted or prematurely ended by diseases transmitted through farming and food systems. Continue reading
Why shutting down Chinese ‘wet markets’ could be a terrible mistake
The current focus on exotic food consumption in China often relies on Orientalisation, and is in some cases tinged with anti-Chinese sentiment. Continue reading
Inalienable imperative—More, and more sustainable, meat, milk, eggs and fish for more than one billion people
A new scientific article from the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems has four big messages: (1) Meat, offal, milk, eggs and fish are vital to—and missing from—the diets of nearly 800 million people. (2) ‘Animal-sourced foods’ are the best sources of high-quality nutrient-rich food for toddlers 6–23-months old. (3) The harms caused by livestock and animal-sourced foods to human and planetary health are overstated. (4) Sustainable development must address the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world. Continue reading