Despite its major role in global development, the livestock sector receives just 3% of official development assistance from major donor countries. Continue reading
Category Archives: Livestock Systems
Ethiopia sets out the futures for its growing poultry, dairy and meat subsectors
A new livestock sector analysis from the Ethiopia’s Livestock State Ministry (LSM) and Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries (MoLF) and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) was recently published. This work was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) to help Ethiopia in its fact-based planning. 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
Lifetime performance of West African dwarf goats under different feeding systems
An article in ‘Animal’ compares the lifetime performance (mortality, maturity, nutrition, birth weight etc.) of West African Dwarf goats kept under various feeding systems. Continue reading
ILRI’s Index-Based Livestock Insurance and Takaful Insurance of Africa win ‘2017 Insurance Innovation Award’
ILRI’s Index Based Livestock Insurance (IBLI) program and Takaful Insurance of Africa are this year’s winners of the prestigious Insurance Innovations Award 2017. The announcement was made at the African Reinsurance Corporation (Africa Re)’s Insurance Awards gala dinner held on Monday 22 May 2017, at the Serena Kigo Hotel, in Kampala, Uganda. Continue reading
Livestock for food security and nutrition—Committee on World Food Security policy recommendations
The following policy recommendations build on the main findings of the CFS High Level Panel of Expert’s Jul 2016 report #10, on Sustainable agricultural development for food security and nutrition: What roles for livestock? The sustainable development of agriculture, including livestock, is essential for poverty reduction and the achievement of food security and nutrition. Continue reading
From livestock smallholders to ‘smartholders’: Nurturing development with animal-source foods
Scientists from across the globe gathered at the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences on 29–30 Mar 2017 to discuss ways to improve nutrition through animal-source foods in some of the most impoverished regions in the world. Chronically affecting 24 per cent of the world’s children, roughly 159 million in 2014, malnutrition is responsible for almost half of all child deaths worldwide. Jimmy Smith, director general of ILRI, was one of the keynote speakers at the opening of the Global Nutrition Symposium, the theme of which was ‘Nurturing development: Improving human nutrition with animal-source foods’. Continue reading
Research to help secure rangelands for users presented at World Bank Land and Poverty Conference
Together with its partners, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) has now taken its research agenda on adaptation and resilience a notch higher, at the on-going Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty themed ‘Responsible Land Governance—Towards an Evidence-Based Approach’. ILRI is one of the major partners that have supported this premier global forum on land governance. Continue reading
The story of Humidtropics agricultural innovation capacity development, 2014-2016
From 2012-2016, the CGIAR Research Program on Integrated System for the Humid Tropics, or Humidtropics, worked towards transforming the lives of the rural poor in several action sites in Asia, Africa and Tropical America. Initially, capacity development went on almost intuitively, as an integrated part of the implementation process. It soon become clear that such … Continue reading
Sustainable livestock systems – highlights from ILRI’s corporate report 2015–2016
In 2015–2016, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and partners revealed extraordinary findings that the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from cattle in Kenya maybe up to 10 times lower than previous estimates, clearly making the case for improving Africa-specific understanding of GHG emissions to develop better-targeted climate change mitigation and adaption strategies. Continue reading