Kenya President Uhuru Kenyatta addressed the 400 guests at the national conference of the Feed the Future Kenya Accelerating Value Chain Development project at ILRI on 27 Apr 2018. Continue reading
Category Archives: Climate Change
Shirley Tarawali on convergence in consumption of milk, meat, eggs at the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture
Shirley Tarawali’s keynote presentation at a GFFA expert panel session focused on Food of animal origin: Demand and diversity. She said that global demand for livestock-derived foods is changing both in quantities—with demand flattening in rich countries but increasing in low- and middle-income countries—and in qualities, varying by region and commodity, and that meeting that rising demand for livestock-derived foods ‘sustainably, responsibly and efficiently’ requires two main things—(1) moderating the demand, wasting less, producing more and improving production efficiency while also (2) taking account of the diversity of livestock systems and producers to maximize opportunities to address the United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Continue reading
Kenya’s Robin Mbae on livestock and climate change at Berlin’s Global Forum for Food and Agriculture
Robin Mbae, deputy director of livestock production at the Kenya Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, describes Kenya’s planning and implementation of interventions to address the impacts of climate change on the livestock sector and vice versa. Continue reading
GASL’s Fritz Schneider on livestock and the SDGs at Berlin’s Global Forum for Food and Agriculture
Fritz Schneider, chair of the Global Agenda for Sustainable Livestock (GASL), gave a short overview of livestock and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals at GFFA. Continue reading
BMZ’s Stefan Schmitz on sustainable solutions for the livestock sector
Following a welcome by ILRI Director General Jimmy Smith, Stefan Schmitz, head of BMZ’s division of rural development and food security and commissioner for BMZ’s special initiative on One World–No Hunger, launched in 2014, gave an opening speech. Continue reading
Sustainable livestock futures—BMZ, GIZ and ILRI at the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture this week
For several days this week (18–20 Jan 2018), several scientific directors and staff of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)—Jimmy Smith, Shirley Tarawali, Dieter Schillinger, Lutz Merbold and Kristina Roesel—will be participating with several ILRI partners in the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA), held in Berlin, Germany. This annual German three-day international conference focuses on the future of the global agri-food industry. Now in its tenth year, the GFFA in 2018 is focusing on Shaping the Future of Livestock—Sustainably, Responsibly, Efficiently. 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
Livestock in developing countries—Misperceptions, facts and consequences
Jimmy Smith, the director general of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), is in London today (5 Oct 2017), speaking at an Extinction and Livestock Conference organized by Compassion in World Farming and the World Wildlife Fund. Continue reading
Largest-ever micro-insurance payout made to Ethiopian pastoralists
More than 2,250 pastoralists received insurance payouts following the extremely poor rains this year in southern Ethiopia. Low levels of rainfall have led to the loss of approximately 300,000 livestock in 2017 in the Borana zone of the southern Oromia region. The insurance payouts of more than ETB5.233 million (USD220,000) was the largest-ever micro-insurance indemnity made in Ethiopia. Each insured pastoralist received an average of ETB2,255 (USD96), which will allow the herders to purchase feeds for their surviving animals and to restock their herds. Continue reading
Livestock-wildlife trade-offs for pastoral livelihoods in the conservancies of the Masai Mara
A new research paper, Trade-offs for climate-resilient pastoral livelihoods in wildlife conservancies in the Mara ecosystem, Kenya, was recently published in Pastoralism: Research, Policy and Practice, May 2017. The paper is co-authored by Claire Bedelian, of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Overseas Development Institute (ODI), and University College London (UCL), and Joseph Ogutu, of ILRI and the University of Hohenheim. Continue reading