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.
For the November 2011 ‘liveSTOCK Exchange’ event at ILRI, Augustine Ayantunde, Shirley Tarawali and Iain Wright prepared an issue brief on livestock challenges and opportunities in rangelands … Perceptions about arid and semi-arid pastoral regions are rapidly changing. They are no longer seen as livestock enterprises but as multiple use systems with important consequences for … Continue reading
ILRI’s Gabrielle Persley being interviewed by Australian journalist Kate Sieper at ILRI’s ‘John Vercoe Conference on Animal Breeding for Poverty Reduction’, held in Nairobi in 2007 (photo credit: ILRI/Susan MacMillan). The Australian Federal Government is funding a new multi-million-dollar Australian International Centre for Food Security, aimed at helping millions of Africans lift themselves out of … Continue reading
For the November 2011 ‘liveSTOCK Exchange’ event at ILRI, William Dar, of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), reflects on ILRI-ICRISAT collaboration on crops-livestock integration in mixed systems … When Michael Blümmel and team organized the inauguration of ILRI’s experimental feed processing unit in their field office at ICRISAT headquarters in … Continue reading
Sake Dabasso Halake stands proudly in front of Equity Bank‘s Marsabit branch, clutching an envelope of 16,000 Kenya shillings (USD165) that she received as a payout on an insurance policy she earlier took out for her cows; she lost ten cows in a drought just ending that has hurt the livelihoods of thousands of livestock herders … Continue reading
For the November 2011 ‘liveSTOCK Exchange’ event at ILRI, Steve Kemp, a livestock molecular geneticist, reflects on the evolution of ILRI’s research agenda and the role of biotechnology research in that agenda . . . Steve Kemp first came to the Nairobi campus of the International Livestock research Institute (ILRI) in 1985 when it was … Continue reading
For the November 2011 ‘liveSTOCK Exchange’ event at ILRI, Philip Thornton, Mario Herrero and Polly Ericksen prepared an issue brief on the relations between climate change and livestock systems in developing countries … Livestock systems occupy 45% of the global surface area with a value of at least $1.4 trillion. Livestock industries and value chains … Continue reading
Photo on Flickr by IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation Turkey. Jeffrey Gettleman, the East Africa correspondent for the New York Times, reports that Somalia’s spreading famine and agony is testing the limits of aid. At Benadir Hospital, in Mogadishu, Gettleman watches children die. In Benadir, there is a room full of old blue cots, one after another, … Continue reading
For the November 2011 ‘liveSTOCK Exchange’ event at ILRI, some senior ILRI staff were provoked to chime in on the need to differentiate research data, results and messages about livestock production systems … Map showing differences in the levels of meat consumed in the world (map by Worldmapper). What set off ILRI’s staff are some … Continue reading
For the November 2011 ‘liveSTOCK Exchange’ event at ILRI, Larry Harrington, from the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF), reflects on livestock and ILRI in its programs … The CPWF was formed in the early 2000’s with a programmatic focus on water scarcity, food security and poverty. It finished its first research phase … Continue reading
For the November 2011 ‘liveSTOCK Exchange’ event at ILRI, Tom Thurow, Professor of Watershed Management at the University of Wyoming reflects on priorities for livestock systems research at ILRI… Climate Change While working in several Latin American countries this summer it struck me that many environmental management/regulation advances that these countries had been making a … Continue reading
ILRI Clippings 