This Jun 2015, Evidence on Demand, an international development information hub supported by the UK Department for International Development (DFID), published a 44-page paper identifying key evidence gaps in our knowledge of livestock- and fisheries-linked antimicrobial resistance in the developing world and documenting on-going and planned research on this topic by key stakeholders.The paper, written by veterinary epidemiologist and food safety expert Delia Grace, of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), is titled: Review of evidence on antimicrobial resistance and animal agriculture in developing countries. Continue reading
Category Archives: Story Type
Scientists from France and Kenya meet in Nairobi to sketch out plans for joint livestock research projects in Africa
On 9-10 June 2015, a delegation from CIRAD, the French agricultural research and international cooperation organization, visited ILRI in Nairobi to develop concrete ideas for collaboration between the two organizations. Continue reading
Small producers are big opportunities for a healthy, safe and sustainable global livestock sector
Jimmy Smith, director general of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), gave a keynote presentation at the International Federation for Animal Health–Europe conference Healthy Animals, Healthy Food, a Healthy Future, held in Brussels on 11 Jun 2015. Continue reading
Climate change impacts on livestock: ‘This information does not exist’
A new working paper from the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) has been published on the impacts of climate change on livestock across Africa. Lead author of the new paper, Philip Thornton, is a scientist with the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). Continue reading
CGIAR Innovation Platform Case Study Competition: And the winner is . . .
In Nov 2014, to better assess the efficiency of these innovation platforms and to document their successes and challenges in different developing countries, Humidtropics launched an Innovation Platforms Case Study Competition. In Feb 2015, twelve candidates were selected to participate in a writeshop focused on writing strong, reflective and cohesive case studies. Earlier this month (Jun 2015), jury members in an editors’ meeting reviewed all the final submissions and chose eight cases to be featured in a Humidtropics Anthology to be published by an academic publisher before the end of 2015; the jury also recommended that two cases be published separately. Continue reading
Scarce, but real, resources (a little essay on the dairy cow prototype and refineries of the future)
Information, ideas and technologies generated by research provide the skeleton on which human development everywhere and at all times depends. New ideas, embedded in technological change, drive human growth, allowing us to escape the grim statistics that haunt peoples of the developed world and the hardships that face peoples of the developing world. Continue reading
New project promises more productive chickens for Africa’s smallholders
A new four-year African Chicken Genetic Gains (ACGG) project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will run from 2015 to 2019 and work to genetically improve Africa’s chickens and to better deliver the superior chickens to small-scale farmers. Continue reading
‘We’re having all the wrong debates’–Tamar Haspel
Award-winning journalist Tamar Haspel makes the case in her latest Washington Post column for exchanging our polarizing arguments about food issues for debates about stuff that really matters. Continue reading
It’s simple (everybody eats); It’s complicated (everybody eats differently)
The inestimable Tara Garnett, of the Food Climate Research Network, offers much new food for thought on ‘the meat question’ in a new discussion paper on What is a sustainable healthy diet? and a new think piece, Gut feelings and possible tomorrows: (where) does animal farming fit? Continue reading
Influencing developing-country decision-makers: 14 things that work–or don’t
Here is some useful advice on what developing-country decision-makers tend to listen to and what they tend to ignore. These excerpts are from a blog post of 12 May 2015 by Duncan Green, strategic adviser for Oxfam GB and author of Oxfam’s blog and book titled From Poverty to Power. Continue reading