A4NH / Africa / Agri-Health / Article / Books and chapters / Brucellosis / Consumption / Disease Control / Emerging Diseases / Food Safety / FSZ / Human Health / ILRI / Launch / Markets

Informal markets main source of food for Africa’s poor: Today and tomorrow

‘. . . According to studies by scientists from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), informal markets . . . provide essential sources of food and income for millions of poor, with milk and meat that is often safer than supermarkets. Blunt crack-downs on informal milk and meat sellers that are a critical source of food and income for millions of people are not the solution,” Delia Grace, ILRI’s program leader for food Safety and Zoonoses, said during the launch of the study in Nairobi on Tuesday. Continue reading

Article / Drought / Drylands / East Africa / Ethiopia / Kenya / Pastoralism / Resilience / Uganda / Vulnerability

New World Bank funds target Ethiopian pastoralists in IGAD project

The World Bank has proved an additional credit of $US75 million to improve the livelihoods and resilience of pastoralists in the Horn of Africa. The funds will help to strengthen the organizational capacity of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD). Continue reading

A4NH / Agri-Health / Animal Diseases / East Africa / Epidemiology / Human Health / ILRI / Kenya / West Africa / Zoonotic Diseases

Urban agriculture: Where suburbs and farms, pathogens and livestock, meet and mix

A dairy farm in Dagoretti, a suburb of Nairobi, Kenya, where lines between city-life and farm-life are blurred (photo credit: Tristan McConnell). Tristan McConnell reported in the GlobalPost yesterday that ‘In modern Africa, it can be hard to tell where the city ends and the countryside begins. Rural Kenyans flocking to the city in ever-greater numbers … Continue reading

Africa / Agriculture / Brazil / Food Security / Malawi / Opinion piece / Soils

African agriculture: Basket case or bread basket?

(Illustration on Flickr by Vintaga Posters.) Is Africa an agricultural basket case, or a potential bread basket? Michael Moran, in the GlobalPost, argues the case for the latter. ‘. . . Food security remains a problem in Malawi, as elsewhere in the so-called Guinea Savannah—a huge belt of arable (and largely untilled) land with unpredictable … Continue reading

Drought / East Africa / Event / Food Security / Geodata / ILRI / Insurance / Kenya / Pastoralism / Vulnerability

New insurance program in Kenya covers cattle lost to drought

A blind pastoral herder in Kenya’s Marsabit District awaits payout of an insurance premium he bought to protect his livestock against drought (photo on Flickr by Jeff Haskins). Tristan McConnell, reporting from Nairobi, writes in the GlobalPost (Boston) yesterday of a new insurance program set up to protect a group of pastoral livestock herders in … Continue reading