Category Archives: Cattle

Camels / Cattle / Climate Change / Drought / Drylands / DRYLANDSCRP / East Africa / Ethiopia / Goats / ILRI / Kenya / Markets / Pastoralism / Project / Sheep / Somalia / Trade / Vulnerability

Foolhardy? Or just hardy? New project tackles climate change and livestock markets in the Horn

Posted on by • Leave a comment

If only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the tropical midday sun, what shall we say of Americans in Alabama and Kenya setting out to learn from, and support, sales of livestock in the hot and drying badlands extending across the Horn of Africa? This is what Peter Little, of Emory University, and Polly … Continue reading →

Agriculture / Animal Feeding / Cattle / Climate Change / Forages / Report / Southeast Asia

Improving forage crops in livestock systems shows potential for reducing climate change

Posted on by • Leave a comment

Vietnamese farmers with cattle fodder. A report by CIAT says livestock systems that use improved forage crops reduce the effects of climate change (photo credit: ILRI/Werner Stür). Last week, AlertNet published an opinion piece highlighting recent research by the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) on how forage-based systems, which dominate agriculture in the tropics, … Continue reading →

Africa / Animal Diseases / Article / Cattle / CBPP / Genetics / Geodata / Goats / ILRI

Lethal family tree: ILRI research shows livestock bacterium is as old as the livestock it kills

Posted on by • 1 Comment

Aurochs were the ancestors of domestic cattle (photo on Flickr by Marcus Sümnick). Lucas Brouwers, in a blog on Scientific American, has picked up on an interesting genetics study conducted at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), in Nairobi, Kenya, which targets a cattle disease known as contagious bovine pleuropneumonia (or CBPP for short). The study … Continue reading →

Animal Breeding / Biotechnology / Cattle / Dairying / Genetics

Dairy scientists of the genomics age: How big data transformed the dairy industry

Posted on by • Leave a comment

Holstein-Friesian cow, Biggle cow book, Philadelphia, W Atkinson Co., 1898 (photo on Flickr by Biodiversity Heritage Library). Dairy scientists are the Gregor Mendels of the genomics age, developing new methods for understanding the link between genes and living things, all while quadrupling the average cow’s milk production since your parents were born. ‘While there are … Continue reading →

Agriculture / Animal Production / Animal Products / Cattle / East Africa / Ethiopia / ILRI / IPMS / Livestock / Markets / Project / Research

IPMS project updates shared with steering committee

Posted on by • Leave a comment

The Improving Productivity and Market Success (IPMS) project held its semi annual steering committee meeting on April 17, 2012 in Addis Ababa. Representatives from the Oromia, SNNP and Tigray bureau’s of agriculture/research; IPMS rural development officers; CIDA representatives; and IPMS headquarters staff attended. Iain Wright chaired the meeting. The main agenda of the day was … Continue reading →

Animal Production / Animal Products / Cattle / East Africa / Ethiopia / Film and video / IPMS / Livestock / Markets / Value Chains

An innovation story: Livestock fattening in Metema, Ethiopia

Posted on by • Leave a comment

This innovation story narrates the experience of the Improving Productivity and Market Success (IPMS) project on livestock fattening in Ethiopia. The video documents how a 2005 alliance between the local government office of agriculture, the IPMS project, and local livestock farmers and traders in western Ethiopia took advantage of livestock market opportunities in neighbouring Sudan. … Continue reading →

Animal Breeding / Buffalo / Cattle / Dairying / Fodder / India / Project / South Asia

World Bank injects USD352 million into Indian dairy farming

Posted on by • 2 Comments

Measuring milk for sale in India (photo credit: ILRI). ‘The World Bank signs an agreement with India to inject $352 million into the National Dairy Support Project, an initiative designed to revive the flagging fortunes of milk production in the country. Other than being crucial to the nutritional security of the country’s population; dairy farming … Continue reading →

Books and chapters / Cattle / Dairying / East Africa / Goats / Human Health / Nutrition / Pastoralism / Small Ruminants / Uganda / Vulnerability

Milk matters are serious matters in northeastern Uganda

Posted on by • Leave a comment

Karamojang woman and child in Kotido, Uganda (photo on Flickr by Courtney Chance). An interesting report on ‘milk matters’ has been produced by the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University, USA, in collaboration with Save the Children. It looks at milk in children’s diets and household livelihoods among the Karamojang, a pastoral tribe in northeastern … Continue reading →

Animal Feeding / Buffalo / Cattle / Crop residues / Crop-Livestock / East Africa / Fodder / ILRI / India / Intensification / South Asia / Tanzania

Dual-purpose groundnut, pigeonpea, millet and sorghum raise milk yields in dairy-intensive India

Posted on by • 1 Comment

Groundnuts (photo on Flickr by Stephen Eustace). Jerome Bossuet, of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), based in Pantancheru, India, has an interesting article in the New Agriculturist last month about fodder innovations helping Indian dairy farmers. Feed matters are big matters in this intensive dairy-producing country, because ‘Feed represents around 70 … Continue reading →

Africa / Agriculture / Animal Production / Animal Products / Botswana / Cattle / Dairying / East Africa / Innovation Systems / Kenya / Livestock / Report / Southern Africa / Uganda / Value Chains

Multi-stakeholder innovation in Africa: Dairy and beef cases feature in new report from FARA

Posted on by • Leave a comment

The Forum on Agricultural Research in Africa just published a new report on agricultural innovation in sub-Saharan Africa: experiences from multiple-stakeholder approaches. The report draws together case experiences across Africa with an ‘integrated agriculture research for development (IAR4D) approach’ that brings together multiple actors along a commodity value chain to address challenges and identify opportunities … Continue reading →