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.
‘Former prime minister Kevin Rudd has been appointed to an unpaid part-time position on a “high-level” United Nations panel tackling global sustainability issues. ‘Mr Rudd last month confirmed he had been approached by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to become involved with the United Nations project. ‘The appointment would require Mr Rudd to attend three meetings … Continue reading
Here is an old (July 2009) news item we missed. The dairy conglomerate Danone built a small factory in Bangladesh to make nutritional yogurt for the poor. Danone’s yogurt brand in Bangladesh is called Shoktidoi, which means energy in Bengali. ‘When French dairy food firm Danone ventured outside the troubled business climate of Europe and the … Continue reading
First there were ‘family farms’, then ‘factory farms’, and now, as reported in a recent article in The Atlantic, ‘mega-farms’, which the article contrasts with family farming. Among the (astonishing) facts reported in the article regarding the speed of transformation of dairy in the United States are the following. ‘Until the 1970s, America’s milk products … Continue reading
This working paper by Solomon Gizaw, Azage Tegegne, Berhanu Gebremedhin and Dirk Hoekstra on Sheep and goat production and marketing systems in Ethiopia: characteristics and strategies for improvement was released on 12 August, 2010. Ethiopia is home for a large and diverse livestock resources and favourable production environments. The vast majority of the rural population’s … Continue reading
‘Some of the cattle cloned to boost food production in the US have been created from the cells of dead animals, according to a US cloning company. Farmers say it is being done because it is only possible to tell that the animal’s meat is of exceptionally high quality by inspecting its carcass. ‘US scientists are … Continue reading
‘Concessions by farmers in this state [Ohio] to sharply restrict the close confinement of hens, hogs and veal calves are the latest sign that so-called factory farming — a staple of modern agriculture that is seen by critics as inhumane and a threat to the environment and health — is on the verge of significant … Continue reading
Trading livestock domestically and regionally, rather than globally, offers the best route out of poverty for southern Africa, according to recent research from the STEPS Centre based at IDS. The work, funded by the Wellcome Trust’s Livestock for Life programme, looked at the beef industry in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe, and questioned whether … Continue reading
According to FAO, Governments could save billions of dollars by stepping up the prevention and control of high impact animal diseases, some of which pose a direct threat to human health. Many other animal diseases have a negative impact on people’s livelihoods. Pandemic influenza viruses H5N1 and H1N1, foot-and-mouth disease, Rift Valley fever, and rabies are … Continue reading
Reconstructed model of what Lucy looked like, from ‘Lucy’s Legacy: The Hidden Treasures of Ethiopia’, Houston Museum of Natural Science, July 2009 (photo by Trish Mayo) If something new is always coming out of Africa, something old is always coming out of the Middle Awash, a (once wet, now desiccated) region of the Great Rift … Continue reading
Since 2008, the Parsel project has been monitoring cattle and wild hoofed animal movements in the Zimbabwe National Park. The aim is to understand and limit the spread of certain diseases. The results obtained so far are so encouraging that the protocol has just been extended to South Africa and Mozambique. Read more … (CIRAD) Continue reading
ILRI Clippings 