Following the vaccine that wiped out rinderpest, a new vaccine against sheep and goat plague proves promising
Africa / AHH / Animal Diseases / Animal Health / Asia / BecA / Disease Control / Goats / ILRI / ILVAC / PPR / Science paper / Sheep / Small Ruminants / Spotlight / Vaccines

Following the vaccine that wiped out rinderpest, a new vaccine against sheep and goat plague proves promising

A new paper by researchers at ILRI describes development of an effective experimental and thermostable vaccine against ‘peste des petits ruminants’, or PPR for short, a disease more commonly known as sheep and goat plague. Continue reading

Simplistic livestock solutions no help for poor people in transition from smallholders to ‘smartholders’
Africa / Asia / Australia / Directorate / ILRI / Opinion Piece / Policy / Presentation / Pro-Poor Livestock / Research / Spotlight

Simplistic livestock solutions no help for poor people in transition from smallholders to ‘smartholders’

Jimmy Smith, director general of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), who previously led the World Bank’s global livestock portfolio, was in Australia last week, talking to ILRI’s scientific colleagues and donor representatives in Canberra and Melbourne. ILRI is chaired by Australian Lindsay Falvey and its patron is Australian Nobel Prize laureate Peter Doherty. Continue reading

On selling insurance (not lottery tickets) to Africa’s struggling (stargazing) livestock herders–New York Times
Article / CCAFS / Climate Change / Drought / Drylands / East Africa / Ethiopia / ILRI / Insurance / Kenya / Livelihoods / LIVESTOCKFISH / Opinion Piece / Pastoralism / Pro-Poor Livestock / Rangelands / Resilience / SLS / Spotlight / Vulnerability

On selling insurance (not lottery tickets) to Africa’s struggling (stargazing) livestock herders–New York Times

Insurance that pays out when forage coverage drops—known as index-based livestock insurance—is an elegant idea. Andrew Mude, an economist and principal scientist at ILRI, last month was awarded the Norman Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application. The award, a major prize in agricultural research, is given by the World Food Prize Foundation and financed by the Rockefeller Foundation. Tina Rosenberg covers the story in the New York Times. Continue reading

Foods available to African farm households increase with market access and off-farm work
Africa / Animal Production / Article / CCAFS / Consumption / Food Security / HUMIDTROPICS / ILRI / Livelihoods / Livestock / LIVESTOCKFISH / Markets / Policy / Pro-Poor Livestock / SLS / Spotlight

Foods available to African farm households increase with market access and off-farm work

Common foods of Khulungira village, in central Malawi: Nsomba zophika (fish stew), chimanga chophika (boiled maize), nyemba zophika (mixed beans with salt and oil), bowa wofutsa (dried mushrooms with ground groundnuts), nkhwani wophatikiza ndi maungu anthete ndi kachewere wophika (pumpkin leaves, pumpkin blossoms and potatoes) and mazira ophika ndi phwetekere, anyezi, mafuta ndi mchere (boiled … Continue reading