Gates Foundation grants Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems USD8.7 million to improve human nutrition in Burkina Faso and Ethiopia
Agri-Health / Animal Diseases / Animal Feeding / Burkina Faso / Cattle / Chickens / East Africa / Ethiopia / Feeds / FFD / Goats / ILRI / Nutrition / Pro-Poor Livestock / Project / Sheep / Small Ruminants / Spotlight / USA / West Africa

Gates Foundation grants Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems USD8.7 million to improve human nutrition in Burkina Faso and Ethiopia

The University of Florida has been awarded USD8.7 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to fund livestock research over the next five years to tackle high rates of food insecurity and undernutrition in two of Africa’s landlocked nations—Burkina Faso, in the west, and Ethiopia, in the east. Continue reading

Scaling up use of livestock technologies in Mali—progress of a Feed the Future program
Agri-Health / Agriculture / Animal Feeding / Animal Health / Capacity Strengthening / Cattle / CBPP / Disease Control / English / Epidemiology / Feeds / Fodder / Goats / ILRI / ISP / Livestock / LIVESTOCKCRP / Mali / Pastoralism / PPR / Report / Sheep / Small Ruminants / West Africa

Scaling up use of livestock technologies in Mali—progress of a Feed the Future program

The most recent progress report from the Feed the Future Mali Livestock Technology Scaling Program describes some successes and swift progress made in recent months towards achieving these goals as well as some new challenges the program is facing. Continue reading

Lessons learnt out of Africa: 19 factors not to underestimate in rural livestock/agricultural research for development
Agri-Health / Agriculture / AHH / Animal Health / Central Africa / Chickens / Crop-Livestock / Disease Control / East Africa / Event Report / Food Security / Gender / Human Health / ILRI / Nutrition / PIL / Policy / Presentation / Pro-Poor Livestock / Spotlight / Tanzania / Vaccines / Women / Zambia

Lessons learnt out of Africa: 19 factors not to underestimate in rural livestock/agricultural research for development

Robyn Alders gave a particularly candid and interesting presentation at a seminar/webinar held on 4 May 2017 at ILRI on the subject of ‘Animal-source foods for nutrition impact: Evidence and good practices for informed project design’. This was the fourth in a Livestock and Household Nutrition Learning Series of seminars/webinars organized jointly by Land O’Lakes International Development and ILRI. Continue reading

ILRI’s Index-Based Livestock Insurance and Takaful Insurance of Africa win ‘2017 Insurance Innovation Award’
Award / Drought / East Africa / IBLI / ILRI / Insurance / Kenya / Livestock / Livestock Systems / Pastoralism / Pro-Poor Livestock / SLS / Spotlight

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

Milk consumption project to tackle child malnutrition in Rwanda
Agriculture / Article / Dairying / East Africa / Launch / Livelihoods / Livestock / Nutrition / PIL / Project / Rwanda

Milk consumption project to tackle child malnutrition in Rwanda

A new ILRI-led Feed the Future Livestock Systems Innovations Lab (LSIL) project on ‘Enhancing milk quality and consumption for improved income and nutrition in Rwanda’ will contribute to efforts towards enhancing the quality and consumption of milk for improved income and nutrition in the country Continue reading

From livestock smallholders to ‘smartholders’: Nurturing development with animal-source foods
Agri-Health / Animal Products / Consumption / Crop-Livestock / Directorate / Event / Food Security / Human Health / ILRI / Livelihoods / Livestock Systems / Nutrition / Policy / Presentation / Pro-Poor Livestock / Research / Resilience / Spotlight

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

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

Kenyan accepts 2016 Norman Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application at World Food Prize Event in Iowa
Africa / Animal Production / Award / CCAFS / CGIAR / Climate Change / Drought / Drylands / Ethiopia / Food Security / ILRI / Insurance / Kenya / Livelihoods / Pastoralism / Policy / Pro-Poor Livestock / Rangelands / Resilience / SLS / Spotlight

Kenyan accepts 2016 Norman Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application at World Food Prize Event in Iowa

Andrew Mude, an economist and principal scientist at ILRI, is being presented with the 2016 Norman Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application today, 12 Oct 2016, for his work leading an innovative livestock insurance program that employs satellite data to help protect livestock herding communities in the Horn of Africa from the devastating effects of drought. Continue reading

CGIAR Rwanda Climate Services for Agriculture project launches today, #WorldMetDay
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

Florida and ILRI start consultations on new ‘Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems’
Africa / Agriculture / Animal Feeding / Animal Production / ASSP / Burkina Faso / Cambodia / Capacity Strengthening / Ethiopia / Event / Farming Systems / Food Safety / Gender / Human Health / ILRI / Livestock / Livestock Systems / LIVESTOCKFISH / Mali / Nepal / Nutrition / PIL / Project / Research / Rwanda / South Asia / Southeast Asia

Florida and ILRI start consultations on new ‘Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems’

The Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems, led by the University of Florida, is currently organizing a number of stakeholder consultation meetings to identify high-priority needs in the six countries it will cover (Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Mali, Nepal, Rwanda). ILRI is a close partner in this new initiative and it helped organize the Ethiopia consultation meeting in Feb 2016. Continue reading