Vish Nene, one of the scientific organizers of the conference and a co-leader of the Animal and Human Health program at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, gave a particularly lucid talk at the pre-meeting workshop on Novel tools and genomics approaches supporting vaccine development. The following is a transcript of Nene’s talk, lightly edited for clarity and brevity. Continue reading
Category Archives: Animal Diseases
Empowering ruminant livestock enterprises in Mali—A Feed the Future-ILRI project
What happened in the Feed the Future Mali Livestock Technology Scaling Program (FTF-MLTSP) in early 2018? Open Day and stakeholder consultation for the program, PPR vaccine deployment, and market monitoring. Continue reading
Towards a sustainable, responsible and efficient livestock sector—Jimmy Smith at the Berlin Global Forum for Food and Agriculture
A delegation from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) was involved in several of this year’s GFFA events, including a kick-off event, with ILRI Director General Jimmy Smith serving on the panel. Continue reading
Animal health and welfare, two cornerstones of sustainable, responsible and effective food production
Highlights of keynote speakers at a high-level panel on the future of animal health and welfare organized by the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) as part of the tenth Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA), which was held in Berlin from 18 to 20 Jan 2018. Continue reading
DFID/UKAid provides £4 million for genetics and health research to aid sustainable livestock production in Africa
Research to improve the health and productivity of farmed animals in tropical climates has received a £4 million boost from the UK Government. The investment from DFID was announced by the Secretary of State for International Development, Penny Mordaunt, during a visit to the University of Edinburgh. It will support research in the Centre for Tropical Livestock Genetics and Health—a joint venture between the University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute, SRUC, ILRI, the latter of which has major research facilities in Kenya and Ethiopia. Continue reading
ILRI’s Kapiti livestock research station—and Kenyan and global public goods—imperiled by land grabs in Kenya
Over the past several weeks, illegal attempts to grab land have escalated at Kapiti Plains Estate (‘Kapiti’, or ‘Kapiti research station’), located about 60 km southeast of Nairobi along Mombasa Road, in Machakos County. Members of groups involved in the illegal sales have started trespassing and building illegal structures on Kapiti research station. No land at Kapiti is for sale. Continue reading
Gates Foundation grants Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems USD8.7 million to improve human nutrition in Burkina Faso and Ethiopia
The University of Florida has been awarded USD8.7 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to fund livestock research over the next five years to tackle high rates of food insecurity and undernutrition in two of Africa’s landlocked nations—Burkina Faso, in the west, and Ethiopia, in the east. Continue reading
Scaling up use of livestock technologies in Mali—progress of a Feed the Future program
The most recent progress report from the Feed the Future Mali Livestock Technology Scaling Program describes some successes and swift progress made in recent months towards achieving these goals as well as some new challenges the program is facing. Continue reading
Following the vaccine that wiped out rinderpest, a new vaccine against sheep and goat plague proves promising
A new paper by researchers at ILRI describes development of an effective experimental and thermostable vaccine against ‘peste des petits ruminants’, or PPR for short, a disease more commonly known as sheep and goat plague. Continue reading
Six new papers on the ancient, complex and everlasting farm animal–zoonotic disease–human well-being nexus
Six new high-level publications by scientists and partners of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH) on zoonoses, livestock and well-being. Continue reading