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.
The World Food Prize is looking for candidates for the 2014 Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application, Endowed by the Rockefeller Foundation. This prestigious award, now in its third year, recognizes an accomplished individual under the age of 40 who has clearly emulated the extraordinary traits demonstrated by Borlaug as a young scientist working in the field … Continue reading
This document by Karen Marshall and Leo Dempfle was released by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in December 2013. The document is designed to assist countries involved in the project ‘Sustainable Management of Globally Significant Endemic Ruminant Livestock in West Africa’ (PROGEBE)’ to develop plans for N’Dama cattle within their breed improvement programs, following the 3-tier … Continue reading
This post was drafted by Terry Clayton based on conversations and interactions with people participating in the Participatory Agricultural Research: Approaches, Design and Evaluation (PARADE) workshop held in Oxford from 9-13 December 2013. We tend to be so preoccupied with how our research does or doesn’t, should or shouldn’t, can or could influence other people, … Continue reading
Innovation platforms are widely used in agricultural research to connect different stakeholders to achieve common goals. This fifth brief explains what monitoring systems do for an innovation platform, who is involved, how it works, and what to do with the findings. Continue reading
This ILRI project report by Karen Marshall is designed to assist partners of the project ‘Sustainable management of globally significant endemic ruminant livestock in West Africa (PROGEBE)’ in structuring the plans behind their national-level animal breeding programs. It, however, will also be useful to others documenting breeding plans for developing country livestock production systems, outside of this specific project. Continue reading
On 27 January 2014, the Regional Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System for Eastern and Central Africa (ReSAKSS-ECA) based at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Nairobi, Kenya, launched a web portal on mapping and tracking of agriculture investments in Africa (see http://www.aginvestafrica.org). Continue reading
Innovation platforms are widely used in agricultural research to connect different stakeholders to achieve common goals. To help document recent experiences and insights, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) recently published a series of short innovation platform ‘practice briefs’ to help guide the design and implementation of innovation platforms in agricultural research for development. This … Continue reading
Innovation platforms are widely used in agricultural research to connect different stakeholders to achieve common goals. This third brief focuses on interactions between research and innovation platforms – how researchers can engage with innovation platforms and how platforms can support research processes. Continue reading
January’s Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA) was the venue for a panel session on sustainable livestock organized as part of the Global Agenda for Sustainable Livestock. The session was run as a facilitated discussion, engaging both a panel of five experts and the 80 or so participants attending. Following panelist interventions, the discussion … Continue reading
The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), as a publicly funded, self-governing organization of the institutions of higher education in Germany, promotes international academic exchange as well as educational cooperation with developing countries through a variety of funding and scholarship programs. The purpose is to provide opportunities to post-doctoral researchers and university staff from sub-Sahara Africa to … Continue reading
ILRI Clippings 