With mainstream banks and microfinance organizations mainly helping business startups in urban Kenya, a group called Juhudi Kilimo decided to focus on rural small-holder farmers. In the largely agricultural east African country of Kenya, many small-holder farmers need a way to start generating income. An organization called Juhudi Kilimo has stepped in with a new … Continue reading
For Sara Ruto, the desperate yearning for electricity began last year with the purchase of her first cellphone, a lifeline for receiving small money transfers, contacting relatives in the city or checking chicken prices at the nearest market. Charging the phone was no simple matter in this farming village far from Kenya’s electric grid. Every … Continue reading
A computer programme for feeding dairy cows has won the top prize in the 2009-2010 Africa-wide science competition held by CTA together with partner organisations. The Endiisa Decision Support Tool was developed by a team of scientists led by the National Livestock Resources Research Institute of Uganda. Team leader Dr Sarah Mubiru said the software … Continue reading
By assessing key risk factors and symptoms, such as an increase in rainfall and high abortion rates, Somali and Maasai herders accurately predicted the outbreak of Rift Valley fever in 2006/07 long before veterinary and public health interventions began, researchers have discovered. “Timely outbreak response requires effective early warning and surveillance systems,” say authors of … Continue reading
The development of the financial services sector is emerging as potential boon to agriculture in East Africa, with up to 40,000 farmers in Kenya and Rwanda set to gain from a new insurance scheme targeting losses to bad weather. The scheme comes at a time when Kenya is recovering from a prolonged drought in 2009 … Continue reading
Now men may be able to make babies without women, through a technology that could for the first time allow same sex couples to have their own genetic children. In a technology developed to help in preserving endangered species and improving livestock breeds, scientists have, for the first time, developed an offspring from two males. … Continue reading
The local dairy industry is set for a major revolution with the planned migration of services to a single digital platform next week. This will put Kenya among few countries with a digitalised dairy value-chain globally, according to the Kenya Dairy Board managing director Machira Gichohi. Various new technologies covering the entire dairy value chain … Continue reading
Inger Andersen, chair of the Fund Council of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and vice president of Sustainable Development at the World Bank during her opening speech at Agriculture and Rural Development Day, a side event at the United Nations climate change conference (COP16), being held in Cancún, Mexico (photo credit: Neil … Continue reading
The drylands of Marsabit District, in northern Kenya (photo credit: ILRI/Mude). ‘With drought striking Kenya every two years, survival becomes an ever more violent occupation. ‘Qampa Re Liban (61), kicks the red soil, hurling up a cloud of dust with the rubber plimsoll on his right foot. ‘“No rain,” he says, leaning on an Ulle … Continue reading
The 12th Ordinary Summit of the Heads of State of the East African Community is taking place today, 3 December 2010, at the Ngurdoto Mountain Lodge, Arusha, Tanzania. President Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania and current chairman of the summit, as well as presidents Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Pierre Nkurunziza of Burundi, Mwai Kibaki of Kenya, … Continue reading
ILRI Clippings 