Category Archives: Pro-Poor Livestock

Animal Production / Animal Products / Bangladesh / Cattle / Central Asia / China / Dairying / Goats / India / Pacific / Pakistan / Poultry / Pro-Poor Livestock / Small Ruminants / South Asia / Southeast Asia / Value Chains / Vietnam

Livestock reduce poverty in Asia – Stories from IFAD

Posted on by • Leave a comment

TagCloud from the International Fund for Agricultural Research (image credit: IFAD). An Asia and Pacific newsletter published by the International Fund for Agricultural Research (IFAD), a specialized agency of the United Nations that works to eradicate poverty and hunger in developing countries, has published a new edition, on the topic of livestock. IFAD projects supporting poultry … Continue reading →

Drought / Drylands / DRYLANDSCRP / East Africa / Eritrea / Ethiopia / Kenya / Pastoralism / Pro-Poor Livestock / Somalia / Vulnerability

‘Nothing works as well as pastoralism in dryland areas’–Simon Levine, ODI

Posted on by • Leave a comment

Nine-year-old livestock herder near Kitengela town, outside Nairobi, at the height of the 2008–2009 drought in this region; dryland peoples in East Africa are both restricted and marginalized (photo on Flickr by Jeff Haskins). Simon Levine says in an opinion piece in the New Agriculturist this month that the current famine in the Horn of … Continue reading →

CCAFS / Climate Change / Drought / East Africa / Ethiopia / Food Security / ILRI / Kenya / Pastoralism / Pro-Poor Livestock / Somalia / Vulnerability

Is famine in the Horn of Africa linked to climate change or not?

Posted on by • Leave a comment

Duncan Green, director of research at Oxfam GB, in the Guardian‘s Poverty Matters Blog today, argues that whether or not the more frequent droughts occurring in the Horn of Africa are due to human-enhanced ‘climate change’, and whether or not this region is likely to get wetter or drier in future (neither of which we can … Continue reading →

Dairying / Drought / East Africa / Food Security / Livestock Systems / Pastoralism / Pro-Poor Livestock / Somalia / Vulnerability

Snapshot of Somalia: A country dominated by livestock and livestock peoples

Posted on by • Leave a comment

A Somali nomad with his camel on the way to the deep-sea commercial seaport of Berbera, in the Gulf of Aden, in the north, where live sheep, camels and other livestock are exported to the Gulf states (photo on Flickr by Charles Fred). The information below is from the website of Vétérinaires sans Frontières-Germany. ‘Somalia has been … Continue reading →

Drought / East Africa / Ethiopia / Kenya / Pastoralism / Pro-Poor Livestock / Uganda / Vulnerability

It takes months to prepare properly for a disaster, and long-term development to prevent one–John Vidal

Posted on by • Leave a comment

John Vidal in the Guardian argues that ‘to pin this crisis on drought or climate change is wrong. This is an entirely predictable, traditional, man-made disaster, with little new about it except the numbers of people on the move and perhaps the numbers of children dying near the cameras. . . . ‘Aid agencies and … Continue reading →

Drought / Drylands / DRYLANDSCRP / East Africa / Nutrition / Pastoralism / Pro-Poor Livestock / Vulnerability

Does Africa’s modernizing Horn no longer have room for 20 million drought-adapted livestock herders?

Posted on by • 1 Comment

Letting the herd down to water at the Omo River at Kangate, in southern Ethiopia (photo on Flickr by Carsten ten Brink). Helen de Jode, editor of Modern and Mobile: The Future of Livestock Production in Africa’s Drylands, argues in the Guardian last week that ‘underneath the high visibility famine in the Horn of Africa lies … Continue reading →

Bangladesh / India / Indigenous Breeds / PIM / Policy / Poultry / Pro-Poor Livestock / Report / South Asia

Backyard poultry keeping and poverty reduction in South Asia: Good practices and good returns

Posted on by • Leave a comment

A chicken forages beneath a farm cart in Brahampur (Arwa Village), in West Bengal, India, near drying patties of cow dung that will be used as cooking fuel (photo credit: ILRI/Mann). A South Asia Pro-Poor Livestock Policy Programme, a joint initiative of the National Dairy Development Board of India and the United Nations Food and … Continue reading →

Africa / Asia / Books and chapters / Caribbean / CCAFS / Crop-Livestock / ILRI / Impact Assessment / Innovation Systems / Knowledge and Information / Latin America / Livestock Systems / PIM / Policy / Pro-Poor Livestock / Research / Staff

HOW livestock researchers do science, and with WHOM, determines WHAT their science achieves

Posted on by • Leave a comment

Agricultural economist and livestock and climate specialist Patti Kristjanson argues for innovation in livestock-research-for development; the image is ‘My mind-map from Thore & Andy’s “Research Impact” workshop at MSRC’ (image credit: dumbledad’s Flickr photostream). How livestock researchers engage with partners, and how they do and communicate their science, matter even more in developing countries than they do … Continue reading →

Africa / Agriculture / Cattle / Dairying / Livelihoods / Malawi / Pro-Poor Livestock / Southern Africa / Women

A woman and her cow: Of bovine bank loans and entrepreneurship

Posted on by • Leave a comment

In Khulungira Village, in central Malawi, farmer Jinny Lemson, 32, started acquiring livestock with her husband ten years ago as an investment. Neither grew up with animals. First they bought chickens, then goats, then pigs, sheep, and cows. They also have ducks, cats and dogs. They grow all the feed on their farm. ‘Our life … Continue reading →

Goats / India / Livelihoods / Pro-Poor Livestock / Small Ruminants / South Asia

Surreal moment teaching ‘goat economics’ to Bill Gates and Warren Buffett

Posted on by • Leave a comment

Woman herding goats in Nagar Village, Tonk District, Rajasthan, India (photo credit: ILRI/Mann). Vikram Akula, founder and chairperson of the SKS Microfinance, in a blog he wrote for 800CEOread, tells the following charming story of how he ended up meeting with some of the richest people in the world to explain to them how the … Continue reading →