At ILRI’s 8 Mar WiDS 2019 meeting, early-career data scientists will be able to interact with experts already impacting the real world using the data that they have generated and analysed. Continue reading
Category Archives: Geodata
Animal Breeding / Animal Feeding / Biodiversity / Breeds / Climate Change / Event Report / Forages / Genetics / Geodata / ILRI / Indigenous Breeds / LiveGene / LIVESTOCKCRP / Presentation / Pro-Poor Livestock / Resilience / Spotlight
ILRI’s Jimmy Smith on farm animal diversity for more sustainable and resilient global food systems
Jimmy Smith, director general of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), this week made a short presentation at the annual meeting of the Food Forever Initiative held in Wilmington, Delaware, 23–24 Sep 2018. Food Forever is a global partnership to raise awareness on the importance and urgency of conserving and using agricultural biodiversity. Smith is one of 30 Food Forever champions advocating this important cause. Smith spoke on the central importance of better conserving, characterizing and using the world’s remaining livestock diversity to ensure future food security in the face of climate and other changes. Continue reading
Agriculture / CCAFS / Central Africa / Climate Change / East Africa / Geodata / ILRI / Launch / Rwanda / SLS / Spotlight
CGIAR Rwanda Climate Services for Agriculture project launches today, #WorldMetDay
A new project is reconstructing Rwanda’s incomplete meteorological data record using cutting-edge climate science and developing climate information products and services based on the expressed needs of the country’s farmers and other end users. The work is carried out by RAB and Meteo Rwanda, in collaboration with CCAFS, IRI at Columbia University, ICRAF and ILRI, with funding from USAID. Continue reading
Animal Breeding / Article / Asia / Breeds / Central Asia / China / Genetics / Geodata / ILRI / Indigenous Breeds / LiveGene / Livestock / LIVESTOCKFISH / Middle East / Sheep / Small Ruminants / Spotlight
New DNA analysis of Asian sheep reveals unique diversity crucial to contemporary food and climate concerns
At a time when the price of mutton is climbing and wool crashing, a groundbreaking new study has used advanced genetic sequencing technology to rewrite the history of sheep breeding and trading along the ancient Silk Road—insights that can help contemporary herders in developing countries preserve or recover valuable traits crucial to their food and economic security. The new findings regarding one of the first animals ever domesticated will be published in the October print edition of the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution. They are the product of an unprecedented collaboration involving scientists in China, Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia, Nepal, Finland, and the United Kingdom. The team analysed the complete mitochondrial DNA of 42 domesticated native sheep breeds from Azerbaijan, Moldova, Serbia, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Poland, Finland, China and the United Kingdom, along with two wild sheep species from Kazakhstan. Continue reading
A4NH / Agri-Health / Article / Disease Control / East Africa / Emerging Diseases / Epidemiology / Food Safety / FSZ / Geodata / Human Health / ILRI / Pigs / Spotlight / Uganda
New study recommends continued research on the possible role pigs could play in transmitting Ebola in Uganda
A new risk assessment paper, Assessing the potential role of pigs in the epidemiology of the Ebola virus in Uganda, was published in the science journal Transboundary and Emerging Diseases on 27 Aug 2015. The authors are scientists at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). Presently, there is no solid evidence that pigs have any role in the past outbreaks of Ebola virus disease. But the risk assessment paper indicates that further research on the role pigs may play in Ebola virus transmission in Uganda is warranted. Continue reading
Africa / Biodiversity / Biotechnology / Disease Control / Europe / Event / Geodata / Human Health / ILRI / LiveGene / LIVESTOCKFISH / Project / Spotlight
Bridging ‘biobanking’ and biomedical research across Europe and Africa: ‘B3Africa’ launched in Cape Town
The first meeting of a new project, ‘B3Africa, short for ‘Bridging Biobanking and Biomedical Research across Europe and Africa’, was held this week (24–25 Aug 2015) at the University of the Western Cape, in Cape Town, South Africa. Continue reading
A4NH / Agri-Health / AMR / Disease Control / East Africa / Emerging Diseases / Event Report / Geodata / Human Health / ILRI / LiveGene / Spotlight / Zoonotic Diseases
UK chief scientific adviser visits Kenya: Part 3—The dual rise of the global livestock sector and antimicrobial resistance
The second of two scientists to make a short presentation to Sir Mark Walport, the UK chief scientific adviser, on his 15 Jul 2015 visit to the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), in Nairobi, Kenya, was Tim Robinson, a livestock and spatial analysis expert. Continue reading
A4NH / Agri-Health / Disease Control / East Africa / Emerging Diseases / Event Report / Geodata / Human Health / ILRI / Kenya / LiveGene / Spotlight / Zoonotic Diseases
UK chief scientific adviser visits Kenya: Part 2—’One Health’ surveillance of infectious livestock-to-human diseases
The first scientist of two scientists to make a short presentation to Sir Mark Walport, the UK chief scientific adviser, on his 15 Jul 2015 visit to the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), in Nairobi, Kenya, was Eric Fèvre, a veterinary epidemiologist and joint appointee at ILRI and the Institute of Infection and Global Health at the University of Liverpool. Fèvre manages several field-oriented research projects on neglected zoonoses on behalf of the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health. Continue reading
A4NH / Agri-Health / Article / Disease Control / Emerging Diseases / Food Safety / FSZ / Geodata / Human Health / ILRI / Intensification / Spotlight
First global map of the rising use of antimicrobial drugs in farm animals published in PNAS
As reported last week in a scientific paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS), Global trends in antimicrobial use in food animals, worldwide antimicrobial consumption is expected to rise by a staggering 67% between 2010 and 2030. Continue reading
Agriculture / Books and Chapters / Cattle / Disease Control / East Africa / Ethiopia / Geodata / ILRI / ILRIComms / Kenya / Knowledge and Information / SLS / Somalia / South Sudan / Spotlight / Sudan / Trypanosomiasis / Zoonotic Diseases
New map: Benefits of controlling trypanosomosis in the Horn of Africa
Using the Horn of Africa as an example, the maps illustrate different steps in a methodology developed to estimate and map the economic benefits to livestock keepers of controlling a disease (Shaw et al. 2014). Cattle are first assigned to different production systems as shown in Map 1, illustrating for example, where mixed farming is heavily dependent on the use of draft oxen in Ethiopia, areas of Sudan and South Sudan where oxen use is much lower, and the strictly pastoral areas of Somalia and Kenya. Continue reading
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