In Egypt, rising food prices have caused panic and hunger: Girl with koshary, Egypt’s national dish, consisting of rice, lentils, chickpeas and macaroni topped with salsa or, for the lucky few with more money, meat (photo credit: James Buck’s Flickr photostream). In the months of October and November 2010, Ellen Geerlings, then working for the United … Continue reading
Category Archives: Regions
Africa / Asia / Caribbean / China / Egypt / Food Safety / Food Security / India / Indonesia / Kenya / Laos / Latin America / Livelihoods / Malawi / Nutrition / Pigs / Poultry / South Africa
Do a billion people really go to bed hungry? Or is a television more important than food?
Foods of Khulungira Village, in central Malawi: Fish stew (nsomba zophika), boiled maize (chimanga chophika), mixed beans with salt and oil (nyemba zophika), dried mushrooms with groundnuts (bowa wofutsa), pumpkin leaves with pumpkin blossoms and potatoes (nkhwani wophatikiza ndi maungu anthete ndi kachewere wophika) and boiled eggs with tomato, onions, oil and salt (mazira ophika ndi … Continue reading
CCAFS / CGIAR / Climate Change / Crop-Livestock / Drylands / DRYLANDSCRP / East Africa / Ethiopia / ILRI / Kenya / Somalia / Vulnerability
New initiative to support agro-pastoralists in Africa’s Horn
Coastweek and Xinhua have published accounts of a new East African dryland food production initiative. The initiative will work towards securing the agro-pastoral livelihoods of poor livestock keepers in the region. ‘Scientists have launched a new initiative to help boost smallholder farmers’ resilience to drought in the Horn of Africa’s drylands. ‘The new initiative supported by … Continue reading
Africa / Agriculture / Asia / Caribbean / Climate Change / Consumption / Environment / Food Security / Latin America / Markets
Lester Brown on ‘the new geopolitics of food’
Youth in window of a poor farm household in Milange, located in Zambezia, the most populous province of Mozambique (photo credit: ILRI/Mann). Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, writes in the May/June issue of Foreign Policy on ‘The New Geopolitics of Food: From the Middle East to Madagascar, high prices are spawning land grabs … Continue reading
Burundi / Central Africa / East Africa / Ethiopia / Food Security / Kenya / Rwanda / Somalia / Uganda
As pump prices rise, so do the costs of basic foodstuffs across eastern and central Africa
Skyrocketing fuel and food prices are making Kenyans suffer; an undernourished child at the Kenya Coast drinks store-bought ‘maziwa lala’ (sour milk) (photo credit: ILRI/Elsworth). A policy brief published earlier this year by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) reports the following. ‘Three years after the 2007–08 food crisis, the prices of basic food items … Continue reading
Africa / Asia / Caribbean / Directorate / ILRI / Latin America
Guyanese to head Kenya-based International Livestock Research Institute
‘Jimmy Smith has been appointed the new director general designate of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), in Nairobi, Kenya. ‘ILRI board chair Knut Hove made the announcement at the 35th meeting of the ILRI Board of Trustees, recently, to an afternoon gathering of ILRI staff, management and board. ‘In his announcement, Hove said, “We … Continue reading
Animal Production / Drylands / DRYLANDSCRP / ILRI / India / Innovation Systems / Mozambique / South Asia / Southern Africa / Trade / Value Chains / Women
Reducing hunger and poverty through goat ‘value chains’ in India and Mozambique
In many of the world’s dry areas, goats provide poor people with nutrition and livelihoods. An imGoats Project is working to transform the lives of goat keepers in India and Mozambique by turning their subsistence-level goat production into viable and profitable enterprises. This two-year (2011–2012) project aims to improve the performance of small ruminant value … Continue reading
Africa / Agriculture / Central Africa / East Africa / Innovation Systems / Research / Rwanda / Uganda
Innovation platforms for development oriented agricultural research
A central question in African agriculture is how to catalyze a more competitive, equitable and sustainable agricultural growth within the context of smallholder production systems, inefficient agricultural marketing, inefficient investments by private sector, and a degradation-prone natural resources base. Integrated Agricultural Research for Development (IAR4D) is a promising organizing concept that builds on the Innovation … Continue reading
Caribbean / Directorate / ILRI / Livestock / Research
ILRI’s new director general designate makes news in Guyana
Jimmy Smith, livestock advisor at the World Bank giving keynote lecture at Tropentag 2010 conference (photo credit: Tropentag on Flickr). ‘Guyanese Jimmy Smith has been appointed the new Director General of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), in Nairobi Kenya. ‘The announcement was made by ILRI board chair Knut Hove at the 35th meeting of … Continue reading
Pastoralism ‘alive and well’: Reflections from the Future Agricultures Consortium conference on pastoralism in Africa
In March this year, the Future Agricultures Consortium and Tufts University organized a conference on the future of pastoralism in Africa. We invited some participants to reflect on the discussions in a short video interview. Ian Scoones from the Institute of Development Studies and the Future Agricultures Consortium concludes that pastoralism is ‘alive and well’ … Continue reading
ILRI Clippings 