For people living in absolute poverty and chronic hunger, the solution is not to rid the world of livestock, but to find ways to farm animals more efficiently and more sustainably
We need to conserve the most important livestock genetic diversity for possible future use – by poor and rich farmers alike
Livestock feed is a key constraint to the commercialization of smallholder livestock production
While vaccines remain the most cost-effective medical and veterinary interventions for controlling disease, opportunities also exist to improve animal health by improving existing veterinary services and access by poor livestock keepers to those services
Mixed crop-and-livestock farms will, more than the traditional breadbaskets and rice bowls of the past, feed the developing world over the next few decades
Human, livestock and environmental health are inextricably linked, Sixty-one per cent of all diseases are ‘zoonotic’ –that is, transmissible between animals and humans.
Making smallholder production more competitive is a powerful tool to reduce poverty, raise nutrition levels and improve the livelihoods of rural people in many developing countries
Expert opinion agrees that the best way to tap into the potential of the drylands is to build on the foundation of their livestock economies rather than ignoring them or seeking to replace them.
A herdsboy rides one of his small native mountain buffaloes in northern Viet Nam (photo credit: ILRI/Mann). Bioversity International and the other 14 centres of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), including the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), welcome the Nagoya Protocol that was hammered out at the eleventh hour in the central … Continue reading
Savanna grasslands of East Africa (photo credit: ILRI/Elsworth). The New York Times reports on the new road the Tanzanian government is planning on building through the northern Serengeti. Is this road, which could disrupt one of the greatest wildlife spectacles on earth, an economic imperative and an ecological disaster? An environmental imperative and an economic … Continue reading
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton with women from AWARD—African Women in Agricultural Research and Development—during a tour of the headquarters of the Kenyan Agricultural Research Institute, in Nairobi, Kenya, 5 August 2009; Sheila Ommeh, a Kenyan AWARD Fellow and geneticist studying Kenya’s native chicken breeds at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), is … Continue reading
Home page of the website of the Consortium of CGIAR Centers. You’ll find news of the new Consortium of Centers of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), to which the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) belongs, posted by the consortium’s communications officer, Elizabeth Clarke, in the What’s New section of the Consortium website. … Continue reading
A young woman tends the goats she is fattening for sale in a village near Fakara, in Niger (photo credit: ILRI/Mann). The International Fund for Agricultural Development is arguing for support for smallholder agriculture at the forthcoming week-long Hague Conference on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change, which starts today (31 October 2010). The conference … Continue reading
According to the FAO, the percentage of people living with very high or high undernourishment is 32% in sub-Saharan Africa and 15% in Asia & Pacific (graphic credit: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations). Two stats leap at at you, fighting for your attention, in the figure above, by the Food and Agriculture … Continue reading
A dairy cow on one of Kenya’s many smallholder farms consumes maize stover, an important supplementary feed in East Africa (photo credit: ILRI). Apropos the recently concluded AgKnowledge Africa Share Fair, held at the Addis Ababa campus of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), which highlighted local innovations and how to share them, is this … Continue reading
The Lung Pu is an indigenous black pig of northern Viet Nam; this one is maintained on a biodiversity farm near the northern town of Meo Vac (photo credit: ILRI/Mann). From Agence France-Presse comes this cliffhanger of a news report today (20 October 2010), the final day of a 12-day United Nations summit on biodiversity. … Continue reading
Roxanna Samii, knowledge practitioner at the International Fund for Agricultural Development, speaks at the opening of the AgKnowledge Africa Share Fair, held on the Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, campus of the International Livestock Research Institute last week (photo credit: ILRI/Habtamu). Over at the Social Reporting Blog run by the International Fund for Agricultural Development, knowledge practitioner … Continue reading
Red sky over Maasai rangeland (photo credit: ILRI). From a Colorado State University press release yesterday (27 October 2010) comes the following news. Researchers from Colorado, Kenya and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Kenya are launching a project that will ultimately help Maasai livestock herders in Kenya adapt to impacts from climate change. … Continue reading
ILRI Clippings 