Using East Africa’s bio-resources to increase and sustain the region’s food production

Posted on 5 Apr 2011 by Susan MacMillan • Leave a comment

Seyoum Leta, manager of the Bio-Innovate Program (photo credit: ILRI/MacMillan). Last month, the Zecco (Trading) website published news of the official launch of a Bio-Innovate Program that will work on smart ways to use the region’s bio-resources to increase food production in sustainable ways in six countries in eastern Africa. Bio-Innovate is funded by the … Continue reading →

Animal Products / Camels / Dairying / Livestock / Middle East

Camelicious … World’s first large scale camel dairy farm

Posted on 4 Apr 2011 by Peter Ballantyne (ILRI) • 5 Comments

Intensive camel farming, mechanised milking, camel milk chocolate, frothy camelcinos and strawberry-flavoured camel milk, all from a 2,000-strong herd of calm, friendly, well-behaved camels? Not quite the picture of Bedouin desert nostalgia you’d expect from a camel farm in the desert. Emirate’s Industry for Camel Milk and Products, better known as Camelicious, does things a … Continue reading →

Animal Breeding / Biotechnology / Canada / Environment / Fish / Food Security / North America / Pigs / Research

Eco-friendly GM pigs under development in Ontario

Posted on 4 Apr 2011 by Susan MacMillan • Leave a comment

Min piglets at the experimental station at the Institute for Animal Science, in Beijing, China (photo credit: ILRI/Mann). Jeremy Cooke of the BBC reports in this video on a genetically modified pig, dubbed ‘Enviro-Pig’, being developed in Ontario that may be among the first of GM farm animals developed for human consumption. (Salmon genetically modified … Continue reading →

Agriculture / Asia / Extension / Film and video / India / Knowledge and Information / South Asia

Video with farmers helps to amplify agricultural extension and learning

Posted on 3 Apr 2011 by Peter Ballantyne (ILRI) • Leave a comment

In February 2011, Rikin Ghandi spoke to people on the ILRI campus about the work of Digital Green to reinforce agricultural extension through the use of participatory video with farmers. More on Digital Green Continue reading →

Disease Control / ILRI / Malaysia / Markets / Middle East / Somalia

Saudi Kingdom to double livestock imports from the Horn of Africa

Posted on 1 Apr 2011 by Susan MacMillan • 1 Comment

‘Livestock traders in Somaliland welcomed the latest development in Saudi Arabia after the kingdom announced on Friday it will increase livestock imports from the Horn of Africa by two-fold by 2012. ‘A press release from the Ministry of Agriculture and Water said Saudi Arabia plans to import close to 2 million heads of a livestock … 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 1 Apr 2011 by Susan MacMillan • 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 →

Africa / Asia / BecA / CGIAR / Directorate / Film and video / Latin America / Research

CGIAR ‘Voices for Change’ short film inspires visions of the future

Posted on 31 Mar 2011 by Susan MacMillan • Leave a comment

A short (4:25-minute) film, ‘Voices for Change’, produced by the Fund Office of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), was launched at the CGIAR 2009 Business Meeting in Washington DC. This video aims to inspire CGIAR stakeholders to shape a future that they want to see through the work of the CGIAR and … Continue reading →

Africa / Asia / Latin America

New aid argument shakes up gloomy consensus around development

Posted on 31 Mar 2011 by Susan MacMillan • Leave a comment

In the Guardian‘s Poverty Matters Blog this week, Madeleine Bunting discusses ‘Charles Kenny’s cheerful polemic counters the current development pessimism on aid. ‘After plenty of aid pessimism, here is a relentlessly cheerful polemic, Getting Better, which is delighting development experts in the US and the UK. Charles Kenny’s book celebrates an era of unprecedented human … Continue reading →

Agriculture / Food Safety / Livelihoods / Southeast Asia

Japanese 400-year-old farming tradition in peril due to nuclear crisis

Posted on 30 Mar 2011 by Susan MacMillan • 1 Comment

A page from the Japan Times, 30 March 2011 (photo credit: Flickr Photostream: Nemo’s Great Uncle). From the New York Times come this report on how Japan’s nuclear crisis is affecting farmers in the stricken region. ‘If Japan’s leaders regard the collapse of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex as this nation’s greatest crisis in decades, … Continue reading →

Africa / Agriculture / Asia / CCAFS / Drylands / DRYLANDSCRP / ILRI / Impact Assessment / Latin America / LIVESTOCKFISH / Research

40 impacts of 40 years of CGIAR Research: 1971–2011–and an update

Posted on 30 Mar 2011 by Susan MacMillan • Leave a comment

The Fund Office of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) recently produced two publications summing up past and current accomplishments in the CGIAR. What the CGIAR has accomplished in 4 decades First is a brochure celebrating, and listing, 40 impacts of 40 years of CGIAR Research: 1971–2011, which provides the following assessment. ‘The … Continue reading →