Leornard Gitau, a small-scale livestock farmer in Dagoretti, Nairobi speaks to journalists during a media tour of urban farmers in Nairobi on 21 Sep 2012 (photo credit: ILRI/Paul Karaimu). In the Nairobi suburb of Dagoretti, ‘Leonard Gichuru Gitau is a city dweller, but it doesn’t take a detective to see that he is also a … Continue reading
Customers at a milk bar in Ndumbuini in Kabete, Nairobi (photo credit: ILRI/Paul Karaimu). Mark Tran in the Guardian‘s Poverty Matters Blog warns us this week not to keep chickens under our beds. On the other hand, he infers, chicken bought on the street in poor countries may be safer to eat than that from … Continue reading
Illustration, ‘Meat and Methane’, by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com. A recent news feature in Nature Climate Change, Light is cast on a long shadow, notes the warming relations (forgive the pun) between scientists in the livestock and climate change communities. ‘The fields of climate change and livestock research have not always been cosy bedfellows. But they are … Continue reading
The Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS) awarded Segenet Kelemu the 2011 TWAS Prize for Agricultural Sciences during the 23rd TWAS General Meeting in Tianjin during the 23rd TWAS General Meeting in Tianjin on Tuesday 18 September. Read more about this on the BecA-ILRI Hub website Watch a video clip of the award ceremony … Continue reading
Tom Olaka, a community animal health worker in Karamajong, northern Uganda, was part of a vaccination campaign in remote areas of the Horn of Africa that drove the cattle plague rinderpest to extinction in 2010 (photo credit: Christine Jost). Fred Pearce writes in New Scientist about How African herders rid the planet of a disease, … Continue reading
ILRI veterinary epidemiologist Jeff Mariner presents his research at a meeting of the World Animal Health Organisation (OIE) (photo credit: OIE). Lauren Everitt of AllAfrica interviewed Jeffrey Mariner, a scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Nairobi, Kenya, about a current article he co-authored in Science (13 Sep 2012) on lessons learned in the eradication … Continue reading
Rice residues in southeast Punjab, India, prior to the wheat season (photo on Flickr by Neil Palmer). Why are most poor farmers in developing countries not adopting ‘no-till agriculture’ (also called ‘conservation agriculture’)—an eco-friendly, natural-resource-conserving technology that helps conserve soil fertility by eliminating ploughing and keeping the remains of crops on the ground after harvest? The … Continue reading
Petroglyphs and pictographs in the Jebel Acacus, Libyan Sahara (photo on Flickr by Carsten ten Brink / 10b travelling). This month’s publication of a scientific article on new evidence of livestock herding in prehistoric Africa is stirring interest. ScienceDaily, for example, reports the following: Chemical analysis of pottery reveals first dairying in Saharan Africa nearly 7,000 years … Continue reading
Figurine of a Cycladic (Keros-Syros culture) woman, dated to 2700–2400 BC and said to be from Syros (photo on Flickr by Ann Wuyts/vintagedept). Tara Garnett, in the current issue of her always-interesting Food Climate change Research Network (FCRN) newsletter, draws attention to some sobering news and advice for decision-makers attending the Rio+20 UN Conference on … Continue reading
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
ILRI Clippings 