ILRI’s Kapiti Research Station commits to preserving biodiversity and conserving wildlife through its wildlife corridor
Advocacy / Animal Diseases / Animal Health / Biodiversity / Climate Change / East Africa / Environment / Event / Kapiti / Kenya / Mazingira / Wildlife

ILRI’s Kapiti Research Station commits to preserving biodiversity and conserving wildlife through its wildlife corridor

ILRI’s Kapiti Research Station has been registered as a Kenyan national wildlife conservancy. Its land will help conserve wildlife that can now move between the corridors in the Nairobi National Park and the Athi-Kapiti plains. Continue reading

COVID-19 and the livestock sector: A wake-up call to optimize sustainable livestock production
Advocacy / Agriculture / Climate Change / COVID19 / Directorate / Environment / Event Report / Food Security / Food Systems / ILRI / Livestock / Livestock Systems

COVID-19 and the livestock sector: A wake-up call to optimize sustainable livestock production

How do we optimize livestock production systems to meet a growing global demand for food and nutritional security in economic, social and environmentally sustainable ways? Continue reading

New One Health centre in Africa announces advisory committee members
A4NH / Africa / AHH / AMR / Animal Diseases / Animal Health / Emerging Diseases / Food Safety / ILRI / LIVESTOCKCRP / OHRECA / OneHealth / Zoonotic Diseases

New One Health centre in Africa announces advisory committee members

The ILRI-led One Health Research, Education and Outreach Centre in Africa (OHRECA) has an advisory committee of 10 members who include scientists and policymakers from Africa, Europe and North America. They will guide OHRECA in implementing its work in Africa. Continue reading

‘To turn the unknown into the known’: Inside the global effort to bring the fight to viruses
Agri-Health / COVID19 / Directorate / Disease Control / Human Health / ILRI / OneHealth / Research / Zoonotic Diseases

‘To turn the unknown into the known’: Inside the global effort to bring the fight to viruses

Dennis Carroll, chair of the Global Virome Project Leadership Board, an ambitious global effort to develop a comprehensive database of viruses and detect and track down the planet’s unknown and emerging viral threats, spoke with Jimmy Smith, the International Livestock Research Institute’s (ILRI) director general, at the institute’s weekly virtual meeting on 18 Nov 2020. … Continue reading

No laughing matter: Livestock enclosures in Africa are an underestimated source of the greenhouse gas N2O
Agriculture / Environment / GHG Emissions / Livestock / Livestock Systems / LIVESTOCKCRP / Mazingira

No laughing matter: Livestock enclosures in Africa are an underestimated source of the greenhouse gas N2O

Emissions from abandoned livestock enclosures haven’t previously been taken into account in estimates for sources of atmospheric nitrous oxide, nor have emissions from abandoned animal pens in other semi-arid areas in the world. Accurate estimates of the sources of GHG are essential in the global effort to combat climate change. Continue reading

USAID-funded Regional Feed the Future Animal Health Innovation Lab to be based in Nairobi, Kenya
Agriculture / Animal Diseases / Animal Health / ECF / ILRI / Livestock / LIVESTOCKCRP

USAID-funded Regional Feed the Future Animal Health Innovation Lab to be based in Nairobi, Kenya

The Feed the Future Animal Health Innovation Lab will identify interventions to reduce livestock diseases, particularly the deadly cattle disease known as East Coast fever (ECF) and further develop local capacity in animal health through research training and institutional development. Continue reading

Chicken intervention in Ethiopian households improved the nutrition and growth of young children
ACGG / Agri-Health / Chickens / Consumption / Diet / Disease Control / East Africa / Ethiopia / Gender / Human Health / ILRI / Nutrition / Pro-Poor Livestock / Science paper / Spotlight / Women

Chicken intervention in Ethiopian households improved the nutrition and growth of young children

ILRI animal geneticist/breeder Tadelle Dessie is one of many authors of a new paper in the Journal of Nutrition that is based on an intervention made by the African Chicken Genetic Gains project in Ethiopia, led by Dessie. Among the main findings of the paper are that a chicken production intervention with or without nutrition-sensitive behavior change communication may have benefited child nutrition and did not increase morbidity. Continue reading

New alliance for better dairy animal nutrition in Kenya will work to advance ‘human nutrition, success and progress’
Animal Feeding / Cattle / Consumption / Dairying / East Africa / Feed Technology / Feeds / FFD / Forages / Gender / ILRI / Kenya / Launch / Pro-Poor Livestock / Project / Spotlight / Women

New alliance for better dairy animal nutrition in Kenya will work to advance ‘human nutrition, success and progress’

Yesterday (7 Sep 2020), ILRI and four partners—Bidco Land O’Lakes, Corteva Agriscience, Forage Genetics International (FGI) and Land O’Lakes Venture37—announced their new alliance in a project to strengthen dairy production in central Kenya. The project aims to help 5,000 smallholder dairy women to advance their sustainable farming practices and to ease the shortage of dairy products in the country. Continue reading

The world needs to learn how to live with COVID-19, says UK public health expert David Heymann
Agri-Health / Animal Health / COVID19 / Directorate / Disease Control / Emerging Diseases / Event Report / Film and Video / Human Health / ILRI / Spotlight / Zoonotic Diseases

The world needs to learn how to live with COVID-19, says UK public health expert David Heymann

David Heymann, who has worked for more than 20 years with the World Health Organization (WHO), here gives his outlook on the current COVID-19 pandemic at an online weekly ‘Round-up’ meeting of ILRI on 28 Aug 2020. Continue reading

Improving animal health in southern Africa—Why it matters and what to do
Agri-Health / AHH / Animal Diseases / Bird flu / Books and Chapters / Brucellosis / Disease Control / Emerging Diseases / Epidemiology / Food Safety / OneHealth / PPR / RVF / Southern Africa / Spotlight / Trypanosomiasis / Zoonotic Diseases

Improving animal health in southern Africa—Why it matters and what to do

In a new book chapter, Delia Grace, a veterinary epidemiologist and food safety expert at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), in Nairobi, Kenya, and the Natural Resources Institute, of the University of Greenwich, in the UK, says animal diseases are a threat not only to the livestock sector of southern Africa, but also to its economy (via reduced benefits from the region’s wildlife resources), and also to human health in the region. Continue reading