Category Archives: Cattle

Africa / Animal Breeding / Animal Production / Biodiversity / Cattle / Gambia / Goats / ILRI / Indigenous Breeds / Livestock / Project / Report / Research / Sheep / Small Ruminants / West Africa

The Gambia’s hardy native ruminant livestock surveyed in bid to improve their conservation and productivity

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Although livestock play a central role in rural development in West Africa, traditional livestock systems have high death rates, low reproductive rates and low offtake rates. Furthermore, the presence of trypanosome-infected tsetse flies in the sub-humid and humid areas hurts the potential for livestock production. The region’s endemic ruminant livestock, however, are highly adapted to … Continue reading →

Africa / Animal Diseases / Australia / BecA / Biotechnology / Cattle / CBPP / Disease Control / Goats / ILRI / PPR / Sheep / Small Ruminants / Vaccines

Australia steps up support for research in Africa to reduce the continent’s heavy livestock disease burden

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ILRI scientist Joerg Jores (right) tells German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who visited the ILRI-BecA labs in July 2011, about his livestock disease research (photo credit: ILRI/Njoroge). ‘Owning large livestock is like money in the bank for African farmers, but major diseases significantly threaten their future. ‘Among these are [peste des petits ruminants], a viral disease … Continue reading →

Africa / Animal Breeding / Animal Production / Cattle / East Africa / Ethiopia / Genetics / ILRI / IPMS / Livestock / Report / Research

Mass artificial insemination interventions to enhance dairy and beef production in Ethiopia

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For the November 2011 ‘liveSTOCK Exchange’ event at ILRI, Azage Tegegne and Dirk Hoekstra prepared an issue brief on genetic improvement of cattle in the ‘Improving the Productivity and Market Success of Ethiopian farmers’ (IPMS) project … A key intervention for dairy and meat value chains in Ethiopia is the use of genetically improved cows. … Continue reading →

Animal Diseases / Cattle / Disease Control / Fish / Fodder / Food Security / Livestock-Water / Pakistan / South Asia

Floods starve and sicken cattle and other livestock in Pakistan

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To escape the flooding in Pakistan, spiders create megawebs in trees (photo on Flickr from M1K3Y; more images on the Nej Lon Blog). More than 150,000 cattle have died in Pakistan as a result of the recent flooding, which, just 12 months after the last massive flooding in the country, has washed away fodder resources and … Continue reading →

Africa / Camels / Cattle / CCAFS / Climate Change / Goats / ILRI / Kenya / Small Ruminants

Climate change causing plant and animal species to move poleward, away from equator

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These camels in northern Kenya are part of a large herd that will cover dozens of kilometres in search of water (photo on Flickr by Ann Weru/IRIN). USA Today reports on a new paper in the prestigious journal Science that increasing temperatures are pushing plant and animal species to move uphill and northward at much … Continue reading →

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

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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 →

Cattle / Drought / East Africa / Ethiopia / Kenya / Pastoralism / Somalia / Vulnerability

Saving cattle to save lives

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Elderly woman, Kenya (photo on Flickr by Curt Carnemark / World Bank). ‘. . . “For pastoral families, livestock is their life. If they lose their animals, they have no way of feeding their families, and they’ll need food aid to survive. And even once the crisis passes, if their livestock have died, they’ll have … Continue reading →

Animal Breeding / Animal Diseases / Cattle / East Africa / Film and video / Genetics / ILRI / Indigenous Breeds / Kenya / Sheep / Small Ruminants

Australian TV program highlights research in race against time to save Africa’s ‘hairless sheep’ and other native breeds

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Worm-resistant red Masai sheep, an indigenous ‘hairless’ sheep kept by Maasai herders, in Kenya (photo credit: ILRI). Catalyst, the Australian Broadcasting Company’s well-regarded science television program, yesterday (14 Jul 2011) broadcast an episode on research being conducted in Kenya to conserve the native livestock of Africa. Okeyo Mwai, an animal geneticist working at the International … Continue reading →

Africa / Animal Diseases / Buffalo / Cattle / Disease Control / Emerging Diseases / Livestock / Wildlife

FAO hosts meeting on buffalo and livestock diseases in Africa

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In June 2011, the European Commission for the Control of Foot-and-Mouth Disease (EuFMD) hosted a meeting on buffalo in Africa. Presentations from the meeting are online, and include: Mapping African buffalo distributions, in relation to livestock disease risk Ecology and social organization of forest buffalo Spatiotemporal dynamics of forage and water resources shape space use … Continue reading →