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.
Mellissa Wood (4th left), of the Australian International Food Security Centre, and other members of the the Commission for International Agricultural Research on a visit to ILRI in March 2012 (photo credit: ILRI). A new initiative has been launched by the Australian International Food Security Centre to improve food security in Africa. The centre, which falls … Continue reading
(Left) water gourd, Kenya, Northern Frontier District, Boran or Gubbra tribe, on loan from Gary K Clarke, Cowabunga Safaris; (right) calabash, Kenya, Maasai, on loan from Gary K Clarke, Cowabunga Safaris (photo credit: Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library / Betsy Roe). A new book from the STEPS Centre, in the UK, takes a fresh look at … Continue reading
Illustration by Olaf Hajek, in The New York Times Sunday Review: ‘The Ecology of disease’, 14 Jul 2012. Jim Robbins in The New York Times Sunday Review today writes about the ways breakdowns in the world’s ecosystems can ‘come back to haunt us in ways we know little about. . . . Multimedia Graphic Hot … Continue reading
Innovation platforms are a complex and some would say a not-so-straightforward approach. Nevertheless, ILRI, other CGIAR centers and other partners are using this approach in various projects such as the Nile Basin Development Challenge, IMGoats and the recently-completed Fodder Adoption and Fodder Innovation projects. What are innovation platforms exactly? This poster gives some ideas. … Continue reading
Results based monitoring and evaluation, gender mainstreaming and mass insemination for improved dairying have been the subject of training interventions by the Improving Productivity and Market Success (IPMS) of Ethiopian Farmers staff in recent months. Courses have been run for staff of the Agricultural Growth Program (AGP) at federal and regional levels, to staff of regional offices … Continue reading
This transmission electron micrograph (TEM) depicted a number of Nipah virus virions that had been isolated from a patient’s cerebrospinal fluid. Nipah virus, related but not identical to Hendra virus, was initially isolated in 1999 upon examining samples from an outbreak of encephalitis and respiratory illness among adult men in Malaysia and Singapore (image credit: Microbe … Continue reading
Zoonotic emerging infectious disease events (non-wild hosts). Published In report to DFID by Delia Grace et al.: Mapping of Poverty and Likely Zoonoses Hotspots, ILRI, 2012 (map credit: ILRI/Delia Grace). Natasha Gilbert reports today in Nature on the ‘Cost of human-animal disease greatest for world’s poor’, noting that ‘the United States and western Europe are … Continue reading
To foster a long-term sustainable improvement in African food security, the Australian government has increased its investment into Africa via the Africa Food Security Initiative (AFSI). One of the AFSI partnerships is between the Biosciences eastern and central Africa Hub (BecA) Hub and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). The latest program update … Continue reading
Happy dragon in Fengdu, China (photo on Flickr by Major Clanger). SciDevNet’s David Dickson argues in an opinion piece last week that the outcomes of the June Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development illustrate that leadership from developing countries will be key to global sustainable development. Dickson says that the result of Rio-20 was ‘the … Continue reading
Classical swine fever is a highly contagious, potentially fatal viral disease that affects pigs. This disease is a major constraint to the development of pig farming systems in northeast India where pig farming is a main source of livelihood for most households. About 80 per cent of households in northeast India rear pigs and pork … Continue reading
ILRI Clippings 