Kenya’s livestock sector is primed to grow exponentially over the next three decades and anchor the country’s food sufficiency amid a rapid rise in the human population, a new survey showed. Continue reading
Category Archives: Pigs
Thursday links (June 2019)
A monthly round-up of recent articles, blog postings and tweets about livestock, aid and other topics that may be of interest to ILRI staff and partners, compiled by David Aronson. Continue reading
Belgium confirms two cases of African swine fever in wild boar
The Belgian Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain (FASFC) has confirmed ASF in 2 wild boar near the Belgian village of Étalle, in the southern province Luxembourg. Continue reading
India’s northeast Bihar State gears up to approve and implement a ‘livestock master plan’
Bihar is gearing up for a ‘livestock master plan’ being prepared for it by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). ‘It is almost ready and ILRI experts will present its draft to the government here on July 4. The master plan, which will be for a 15–year period, will emphasise on various steps to give a push to dairy, goat-rearing, poultry, piggery and other allied sectors with an aim to improving food security and reducing poverty through better and more sustainable use of livestock. Continue reading
India’s Nagaland State launches AI scheme for pigs following the state’s landmark pig breeding policy
‘With per capita consumption of pork in Nagaland highest in the country, Nagaland Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Services department has launched artificial insemination (AI) of pigs in the State on a pilot basis to boost pig production, double farmers’ income as also to eliminate diseases in pigs.The department launched the project in association with ILRI, ICAR-National Research Centre on Pigs, North East India Development Agency and Tata Trust. Continue reading
Bacteria pose bigger risk than chemical contamination of Vietnamese pork—New research
‘Forty eight out of 108 (44 per cent) cut pork meat samples collected at wet markets in Hưng Yên Province were found to contain the disease-causing bacteria Salmonella. . . .
‘The researchers determined that the probability of pork eaters in northern Hưng Yên Province becoming ill with salmonellosis from consuming infected pork in a given year is 18 per cent. . . .. However, this risk can be avoided,” Nguyễn Việt Hùng, representative for East and Southeast Asia and a senior scientist in eco-health and food safety at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) told Việt Nam News. Continue reading
The epidemiological search for Ebola’s hiding places
After the recent epidemic, Ebola disappeared. But this relief is only temporary: the virus is hiding somewhere—maybe in forest animals, maybe closer to home. Leigh Cowart joins the hunt. This article was first published by Wellcome on Mosaic and is reproduced here under a Creative Commons licence. Continue reading
Sweet success: Sweetpotato (and sweet livestock feed) take the limelight today at Iowa’s World Food Prize ceremony
This project is integrating sweetpotato feed into small-scale pig production systems, demonstrating to Uganda’s smallholder farmers three benefits of sweetpotato silage: increased pig productivity, affordable costs and labour savings. ILRI’s role in this project is to better understand pig feeding practices in Uganda, to investigate options for making sweetpotato silage, and to assess the economic viability of sweetpotato silage as pig feed, including the willingness of Ugandan farmers to pay for the silage. Continue reading
New publication warns of rising use of antibiotics and other antimicrobial drugs in farm animals
Delia Grace, a veterinary epidemiologist colleague of Robinson’s at ILRI, was recently asked by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) to write a paper, now under external review, on antimicrobial resistance linked to agriculture. Continue reading
Where do the world’s cattle, chickens, pigs live? Check out these cool maps (sheep and goats coming)
This articles describes a fascinating set of 2014 maps available on a Livestock Geo-Wiki maintained by a multi-partner collaboration led by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB-LUBIES). Here you’ll find regularly revised and updated global maps of livestock distributions and production systems. Continue reading