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.
This week, the Participatory Epidemiology Network for Animal and Public Health (PENAPH) holds a 5-day training course for trainers in Participatory Epidemiology, in Lomé, Togo. The 11 participants were selected from the 29 Participatory Disease Surveillance (PDS) practitioners trained in Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire and Togo as part of the Early Detection Reporting Surveillance … Continue reading
Scientists baffled by the continued spread of sleeping sickness through Uganda have discovered that it is livestock markets that are driving the disease. A team from Uganda and the United Kingdom analysed the incidence of the serious Rhodesian form of sleeping sickness, which is carried by cattle, in two newly affected districts. They confirmed that … Continue reading
Livestock experts want East African countries to invest more in the processing of hides and skins in order to increase revenue. Largely neglected as a village-based enterprise for arid and semi-arid areas, the experts argue that the leather sub-sector could inject additional revenue into regional economies through value addition. According to the permanent secretary in … Continue reading
The animal husbandry and poultry sectors will be reviewed and restructured so that they develop in a sustainable and competitive manner, an official said at a conference in HCM City yesterday. Hoang Kim Giao, head of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Animal Husbandry Department, said under the Livestock Development Strategy, the country would … Continue reading
Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) represents a threat to poultry industries worldwide and to people’s livelihoods, and a potential threat to human health. The international community has a vested interest in minimizing the spread of this disease. Countries may be under threat of introduction of highly pathogenic avian influenza through unregulated poultry trade and marketing … Continue reading
At first glance, the Riswick farm is just another modern agricultural facility: in the middle of broad cultivated fields stand recently built barns, similar to so many other farms across Europe. But Riswick is a model experimental farm in the small town of Kleve, located 460 kilometres southwest of Berlin and a few kilometres from … Continue reading
Equity Bank Ltd. and UAP Insurance Ltd. will insure livestock in northern Kenya against starvation and are offering the first African insurance program that will use satellite images to predict drought. The index-based product will initially be sold to herders of camels, cows, goats and sheep in Kenya’s arid Marsabit district, the Nairobi, Kenya-based International … Continue reading
Ever since the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization released a 2006 report that attributed 18% of the world’s man-made greenhouse-gas emissions to livestock — more, the report noted, than what’s produced by transportation — livestock has taken an increasingly hard rap. Read more … (Time Magazine) Continue reading
Herders in northern Kenya who suffered large cattle losses during recent droughts are to be offered livestock insurance in a pioneering project that uses satellite imagery of available grazing to determine when payouts occur. The scheme, billed as a world first by the International Livestock Research Institute, is being launched today in the arid Marsabit … Continue reading
“This is a new approach to tackle an old problem,” Carlos Sere, director general of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), said of the satellite-based insurance for cattle, goats and other animals. Satellite images will measure the greenness of vegetation in the Marsabit area of northern Kenya. A shift to brown will trigger payouts to … Continue reading
ILRI Clippings 