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.
PRIME helps farmers with livestock become more resilient to shocks. It also supports better management of existing water resources through more efficient rain harvesting techniques, better early warning systems and information sharing, and improved governance of communal lands and water spots. By improving linkages in the livestock value chain, PRIME also helps ensure profitable outlets for livestock sales when there is not enough feed available to support existing herd sizes. Continue reading
African camels could hold important clues to controlling the potential spread of a respiratory disease transmitted by the animals. For many years African camels have lived with the disease and the risk of it spreading to humans is still low. But more research is necessary to understand the disease better. This is even more important given the confirmation that the chains of transmission of the human Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) infection originated from contact with camels. Continue reading
Livestock Wealth was born out of the need to design wealth creation investment opportunities for Africans in an unpretentious way that the intended beneficiaries could understand. Livestock Wealth is a digital, trademarked “crowd-farming” platform officially launched in October this year that allows wannabe farmers–who don’t know the first thing about farming, let alone owning land, to establish a farm–to invest in cows remotely. Continue reading
‘Members of communities that live in forests and depend on hunting for survival have been reported to be at risk because bush meat, widely used as their source of food, can be a source of deadly pathogens from wild animals to humans. The Arusha-based, Nelson Mandela University and the US Centre[s] for Disease Control have now entered into a project aimed at curbing the transmission of diseases from wild animals to human beings.’ Continue reading
A new edition of a stunning coffee table book about one of Africa’s livestock treasures—the indigenous Nguni cattle of South Africa—has been published. ‘Long the mainstay of traditional Zulu culture, [the Nguni] are possibly the most beautiful cattle in the world, with their variously patterned and multicoloured hides everywhere in demand. . . . Continue reading
‘The potential of extensive livestock systems in African drylands is a topic buzzing in and around the United Nations climate change conference in Paris—COP21. Continue reading
This was the ‘Year of Meat’, when animal flesh became the poster child for health and environmental ‘bads’. As the role of over-consuming meat in greenhouse gas emissions, obesity and cancer took centre stage, even iron man Arnold Schwarzenegger, speaking at the United Nations COP21 climate change conference in Paris this Dec, climbed the bandwagon to advocate eating less meat. Below are summaries of two of the more balanced articles (evidence-based and not unreasonably optimistic about human enterprise and ingenuity) that appeared this year about our love-hate relationship with meat. Continue reading
The Urban Zoo project is visiting 99 households across Nairobi, rich and poor, with livestock and without. They’re taking samples from people, their animals, and whatever wildlife they can find nearby (and catch): storks, mice, bats, et cetera. They’re sampling the ground around homes, yards and livestock pens with white paper booties. ‘The aim, says University of Liverpool veterinarian Judy Bettridge, is “to try and understand on a small scale how those bacteria are shared” among each household’s people, livestock and environment. “And then when we scale it up, are the bacteria here being shared with the household that’s 50 meters over there? Or 100 meters over there? So, how far can they actually spread?” . . . Continue reading
After nine years, the Foodborne Disease Burden Epidemiology Reference Group (FERG) of the World Health Organisation (WHO) has produced the first global assessment of food-borne disease. Continue reading
Three projects on innovative farmers’ cooperatives, best farming practices in hilly areas and better marketing of milk were winners at recent awards for Innovation Platforms (IP) Case Study Competitions held in Kampala. Continue reading
ILRI Clippings 