Study recommends new systems for raising and selling small animal stock in Ethiopia

Posted on August 25, 2010 by Paul Karaimu

Thirteen year-old Damte Yeshitella tends cattle on the outskirts of Addis Ababa. Improved systems of raising and selling sheep and goats can increase production in Ethiopia's large livestock sector. (Photo credit: ILRI)

A new report calls for making better use of Ethiopia’s native livestock resources, expanding livestock export markets and favourable livestock regions to transform the country’s large livestock sector, particularly that of sheep and goats.

Despite Ethiopia’s wealth (in types as well as numbers) of livestock resources, scientists report that national levels of livestock production remain far below expectations. A new working paper, ‘Sheep and goat production and marketing systems in Ethiopia,’ offers strategies for raising those levels. The report is published by a project, ‘Improving Productivity and Market Success (IPMS) of Ethiopian Farmers,’ implemented by the Government of Ethiopia and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).

Although Ethiopians raise vast numbers of small stock—about 25 million sheep and 21 million goats—the nation’s livestock sector continues to underperform. The new report cites a multitude of technical, socio-economic and biological problems constraining the country’s sheep and goat production. These include livestock diseases and parasites, poor-quality feeds, inaccessible livestock inputs and inappropriate methods for delivering extension messages. Inadequate markets, including insufficient access to markets and market information as well as low market prices, also prevent livestock farmers from achieving the great potential their animals offer.

But ILRI researchers Azage Tegegne, Berhanu Gebremedhin and Dirk Hoekstra, among other authors of the report, are quick to point out that the Ethiopian livestock sector has many ‘favourable opportunities to increase sheep and goat productivity.’

The report recommends supporting alternative production systems that will not only improve small-scale production systems but also speed development of larger scale specialized sheep and goat production systems.

Small stock production should be stratified, the scientists say, and different zones delineated for different kinds of production systems. The report says, for example, that herding and other forms of extensive livestock-based systems are more suited to the country’s vast western, eastern and southern lowlands as well as subalpine sheep-based regions, whereas intensive market-oriented systems are better suited to the wet highlands, where farmers typically mix crop growing with animal husbandry.

Among the places where the Improving Productivity and Market Success of Ethiopian Farmers project is working to increase productivity of small animal stock is Gomma District, where sheep fattening cycles have been set up and are run by women.

The project is enabling farmers to increase the production of sheep and goats, with larger numbers of healthier animals fetching higher prices when they (or their related products) are sold in markets.

‘Farmers are using the increased income to expand and increase the numbers of animals in the fattening program and to purchase agricultural inputs like seeds, fertilizer and farm tools. Household items, especially food, are also more accessible. They are also able pay for their children’s education’, said Tegegne, who is also a research scientist with the project.

Findings from the project in Gomma show that households made a profit of Birr 2,250–4,500 (US$167–333 USD) annually from the sale of fattened animals. In the first round, 120 farmers (38 women) fattened 5 sheep per household in three months. Most managed to fatten 15 sheep in three cycles in a year translating to significant household income for farmers and their families. As a result of this success, the fattening program is now used by more farmer groups and landless urban youths.

‘Women in particular benefit from this project, especially in areas where women’s groups focused on sheep fattening have been established. Fattening activities for small animal stock are traditionally carried out by women, who use income generated from this project to meet household and family needs. There is great potential to expand the project,’ says Tegegne.

The report also recommends greater use of technological interventions to better exploit the country’s genetic diversity and improve its breeding stock and to better control livestock diseases. And it suggests ways to reorient the country’s livestock extension services for better delivery to livestock keepers. The report says improved markets will depend on more and better-quality infrastructure and market information as well as communities of livestock producers organizing themselves into marketing groups or cooperatives to gain better access to markets and to increase their profit margins.

This report is part of a series of working papers produced by a five-year project funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and implemented by ILRI on behalf of the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

To read the full report, please visit https://cgspace.cgiar.org/handle/10568/2238 and to find out more, visit Improving Productivity and Market Success (IPMS) of Ethiopian Farmers Project.

The common practice of pig-rearing in northeast India would profit from better breeding and feeding programs and greater involvement of women

Posted on August 23, 2010 by Paul Karaimu

A woman pig farmer in northeastern India. Pig-rearing there can benefit from better coordinated breeding and greater involvement of women in the sub-sector. (Photo credit: ILRI/Stevie Mann)

Livestock researchers are recommending improved feeding systems, better coordinated breeding and more involvement of women to increase pig production in poor communities of northeastern India.

In a paper on the pig sector in northeast India, a group including Iain Wright, who leads and coordinates research by the Africa-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Asia, provides detailed analysis of the pig sub-sector in the states of Assam and Nagaland and key recommendations to improve the sub-sector’s productivity and its benefits to farmers. The paper also provides the first systematic review of the pig value chain in the region.

India’s northeastern region has over 3 million pigs, which is about one-quarter of the country’s pig population. Most of the tribal peoples who live in this remote region rely on raising pigs to sustain their mixed farming systems. Farmers here who can take advantage of a growing demand for pork and related products in the region—a rising demand brought about by urbanization and a rising middle class—will be able to increase their incomes from their animal enterprises and escape poverty in one of India’s poorest areas.

The paper notes, however, that the region’s pig sub-sector faces many problems that keep farmers from exploiting the great potential it offers. These challenges include a largely unstructured pig sub-sector, low-producing breeds, insufficient feed resources and little animal health care services. In addition, the infrastructure available for slaughtering pigs and selling pork meat is inadequate, compromising food safety and putting public health at risk.

Following field surveys carried out over several months in 2006 and 2007, researchers are recommending that the region’s pig producers adopt better feeding and management methods, including better use of local feeds and cross-bred pigs. In addition to these traditional approaches to improved livestock production, the researchers are also recommending that more women, who already provide most of the labour in pig rearing at the household level, become much more involved in pig development programs.

These findings are reported in a paper presented in July 2010 at a symposium in Hanoi, Vietnam. The authors also recommend using current venues for pig slaughtering as main entry points for interventions made to increase food safety in the region’s pork supply chain.

The researchers commend on-going efforts by government and donor agencies to create programs that support the pig sub-sector. These efforts include supplying research information, improving breeding stock, and provision of extension services and credit, which are encouraging people to take up pig rearing and introducing better breeds to farmers.

The authors say that breeders should be encouraged to include the region’s indigenous ‘large black’ pig, a breed preferred by most producers, in their breeding programs. Consumer preferences should be studied and built on, the report says, and a planning and coordination group should be established to oversee policies and programs for the region’s pig sub-sector.

‘Some of these recommendations are already being tested or implemented in ongoing work by ILRI and its partners,’ says Wright, ‘but much more can be done to help this region’s millions of smallholder pig-keepers climb out of poverty—and do so on the backs of their backyard pigs.’

The report is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10568/2233

Traditional knowledge key to managing outbreaks of Rift Valley fever: Study points out important role livestock keepers play in veterinary surveillance

Posted on August 20, 2010 by Paul Karaimu

Orma Boran cattle crossing a river in Kenya. Cattle and people both can be infected with Rift Valley fever (Photo credit: R Dolan)

Livestock researchers say the traditional knowledge of local pastoralists in East Africa needs to be included in programs to better control livestock diseases in the region.

Somali and Maasai herder early warning systems both were key in identifying the risk factors and symptoms of Rift Valley fever in an outbreak in 2006/7.

Rift Valley fever is an acute viral zoonosis spread by mosquitoes. It primarily affects domestic livestock such as cattle, camels, sheep and goats, but can also infect, and kill, people, especially those handling infected animals.

First isolated in humans in the Rift Valley region of Kenya in 1930, until the 1970s Rift Valley fever was reported mainly in southern and eastern Africa, primarily Kenya, where it was considered an animal disease, despite sporadic human cases. But after the 1970s, explosive outbreaks occurred in human populations throughout Africa, Indian Ocean states and the Arabian Peninsula. Epidemics in Egypt in 1977/8 and in Kenya in 1997/8 each killed several hundred people. Another outbreak in Kenya in 2006/7 killed more than 100 people.

In East Africa, Rift Valley fever outbreaks have coincided with heavy rainfall and local flooding, which can lead to expansion of mosquito populations. In an assessment made to review lessons from the 2006/7 outbreak in East Africa carried out by scientists from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the Kenyan and Tanzanian departments of veterinary services, researchers found that Somali pastoralists of northeastern Kenya accurately assessed the likelihood of an outbreak based on their assessments of key risk factors, and they did so long before veterinary and public health interventions began. The study also looked at the experiences of Maasai herders of northern Tanzania, who accurately recognized symptoms such as high abortion rates as indicating the presence of the infection in their herds.

Among the environmental factors the Somali communities noticed as likely to lead to an outbreak is an increase in rainfall (usually accompanied by floods) and an increase in mosquitoes. Both preceded the 2006/7 outbreak and had been present in the last outbreak of Rift Valley fever in the region in 1997/8. The Somalis also accurately associated a ‘bloody nose’, or Sandik, in their animals with Rift Valley fever.

The role of this traditional knowledge in predicting Rift Valley fever is the subject of a paper, ‘Epidemiological assessment of the Rift Valley fever outbreak in Kenya and Tanzania in 2006 and 2007’, published in the August 2010 supplement of the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

The authors say that Somali pastoralists are particularly able to predict not only the symptoms of Rift Valley fever in their animals but also the likelihood of an outbreak of the disease. Indeed, observations by local communities in risk-prone areas were often more timely and definitive than the global early warning systems in use at the time of the 2006/7 outbreak.

‘Timely outbreak response requires effective early warning and surveillance systems. This study points out the important role that livestock keepers can play in veterinary surveillance,’ the authors say.

As a result of the experiences of the 2007 outbreak, the authors recommend adopting new forecasting models and surveillance systems ‘that place more emphasis on climatic information [to] increase the lead time before events and enhance the ability of decision-makers to take timely action.’

The researchers also say that outbreaks of Rift Valley fever could be managed better if disease control workers were able to run models that combined economic with epidemiologic factors. With such models, they could better determine the benefits of implementing various disease surveillance and control methods, and the best times to implement each method selected for each circumstance.

This piece is adapted from the article New journal article: An assessment of the regional and national socio-economic impacts of the 2007 Rift Valley fever outbreak in Kenya by Tezira Lore, communications specialist for ILRI’s Markets Theme.

To read the complete report and its recommendations please visit http://www.ajtmh.org/cgi/content/abstract/83/2_Suppl/65/

A related ILRI news article addresses the full effects of the 2006/7 Rift Valley fever outbreak in East Africa, including the national and regional socioeconomic impacts of the outbreak and its effects on human and animal health.

Need for delivery networks for East Coast fever vaccine highlighted in audio interview

Posted on August 18, 2010 by Paul Karaimu

East Coast fever is a major livestock disease in eastern, central and southern Africa. Transmitted by ticks infected with a protozoan parasite (Theileria parva), it kills over 1 million animals each year, damaging livelihoods of poor livestock keepers and farmers in 11 countries. Researchers from organizations such as the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) are working to find innovative ways to protect African livestock against this and other ‘orphan’ livestock diseases.

One of the successes in the efforts to fight East Coast fever has been the development of a ‘live’ vaccine, which includes the whole parasite, weakened so as not to cause severe disease thatcame after over 30 years of research by organizations including ILRI and the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute. This long-term research was funded by UK Department for International Development and other donors of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. The vaccine is now registered in Kenya, Malawi and Tanzania and its widespread use is being promoted so that it can give protection to the animals on which many poor people in these countries depend.

In the following audio interview, John McDermott, Deputy Director General-Research at ILRI, speaks in Nairobi of the need ‘to develop networks that can distribute and deliver’ the vaccine to those who need it, which should encourage its widespread use. This interview, produced in July 2010 by AFGAX Radio (http://www.agfax.net), also shares the expectations of a veterinarian from Kenya and a farmer from Tanzania of how the vaccine will help livestock keepers.

To listen to the interview, visit: http://www.agfax.net/radio/detail.php?i=353

More information about the East Coast fever live vaccine is available in the following article.

Small-scale traders in ‘clean milk’ strengthen the milk value chain in urban India

Posted on August 16, 2010 by Paul Karaimu

Small- and medium-scale milk traders—not big or even small grocery stores—are what links most dairy farmers and consumers in Guwahati, the capital of Assam. Milk and milk products make up a large part of the most nourishing foods available to millions of poor people in this remote, poverty-stricken state of northeastern India. To promote the business of ‘clean milk’ among smaller scale traders, researchers recently trained more than 90 dealers in improved milk handling technique.

For three weeks this July 2010, courses were conducted on clean and hygienic milk handling and distribution for milk traders and vendors. Participants were trained in such specifics as the causes of milk spoilage and disease, hygienic milk handling and transportation, how to conduct tests for milk quality, and ways to ensure milk containers used in all processes of milk handling are sanitized.

The course trainers and materials were provided by staff of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), who are working to educate and skill up relatively informal milk traders in the production and sales of clean milk and milk products. The benefits of this training are many, including not only cleaner, hygienically handled, milk, but also more milk sales, greater customer satisfaction and improved community health.

The trainings are part of a series that will reach more than 300 traders who collect and sell milk on the outskirts of Guwahati. The five modules that make up each training course are being delivered in 12 batches through October 2010.

Led by the Directorate of Dairy Development in Assam, the training program is supported by the Assam Agricultural Competitiveness Project under an initiative of the Joint Coordination & Monitoring Committee, which is bringing together organizations such as Dairy Development, the Veterinary Department, the public health departments in Assam, the Guwahati Municipal Corporation, the Assam Rural Infrastructure & Agricultural Services Society, and ILRI.

ILRI’s participation in this initiative is part of a project, ‘Improvement of the traditional dairy value chains in Assam’, partly funded by the UK Department for International Development’s Research-into-Use program. The project aims to increase demand for locally produced, good-quality milk in Assam and the capacity to supply it. Project members are supporting agents involved in the entire peri-urban traditional dairy value chain, from production, to distribution to the sales of safe, high-quality milk and dairy products.

ILRI has helped the Directorate of Dairy Development to mobilize Assamese dairy producers, suppliers and processors in the traditional sector as well as policymakers to improve the quality of milk delivered to consumers and to strengthen the dairy sector in general. ILRI is a member of a team strengthening the capacity of the local milk producer & milk traders/vendors association and will work with the Directorate of Dairy Development on a Joint Coordination and Monitoring Committee to monitor the ways that the lessons imparted to the milk traders are implemented and adapted.

Asif Bin Qutub, a project coordinator with ILRI in India and one of the trainers in this course, said that: ‘This training addresses trader needs identified after a baseline survey conducted by ILRI showed that most of the traders had lost potential customers as a result of selling inferior milk due to not following proper milk handling procedures.’

‘The training aims to address other issues as well,’ Qutub said. ‘It provides dealers with information on milk prices and good business practices—information likely to motivate them to improve the quality of the milk they supply to their customers.’

Those trained said their newly acquired knowledge would help them as well as farmers to increase their milk sales, and at higher prices, to reduce their losses from spoilage, and to protect their health and that of their families. They also mentioned that they looked forward to gaining greater approval for their businesses as well as new opportunities.

Sagar Dhakal, vice president of Guwahati’s Milk Suppliers Association, said he and his colleagues had agreed to keep the training materials on display in their offices and to share their training more widely with others in the business.

Those participating in the courses will receive certificates from Assam’s Directorate of Dairy Development and Joint Coordination and Monitoring Committee.

Over 300 agricultural research projects in Africa are mapped

Posted on August 6, 2010 by Paul Karaimu

An initiative has now mapped over 300 of the world’s ongoing agricultural research projects in Africa. Evelyn Katingi, the map coordinator, says this represents ‘an 86 per cent coverage of information from all 15 centres of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), the world’s pre-eminent group of agricultural research-for-development specialists.’ Katingi leads this initiative at the Nairobi campus of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).

‘CGMap Ongoing Research in Africa’ is the result of a collaborative effort between two CGIAR programs: Collective Action in Eastern and Southern Africa and ICT-KM (Information and Communication Technologies—Knowledge Management). The map makes information about research projects across Africa and the CGIAR consortium accessible to staff, partners and other key stakeholders in African agricultural research.

Information in the map is contributed by CGIAR scientists, who provide details of their projects, including time frame, location, key players and partners involved and contact information.

Started in 2007, this project provides an interactive way of viewing all projects that the 15 CGIAR partners are involved in, allows one to search and find out more about on-going projects and provides links to key players in agricultural research in Africa and beyond.

According to information collected from the map, 21 per cent of reported projects focus on crops, 14 per cent on policy and institutions, 10 per cent on livestock, 5 per cent on land management, 4 per cent on soils and 2 per cent on fisheries.

Most of the projects currently mapped are being conducted in East Africa, with 120 projects in Kenya, 91 in Uganda and 87 in Tanzania. But coverage of other countries, especially Ghana, Nigeria and Zambia, is growing.

A new version of the map launched earlier in the year is attracting increasing numbers of visitors, and thus generating concomitant increasing opportunities for greater collaboration.

The CGIAR demonstrated the use and utility of the CGMap to participants of a Science Week and General Assembly of the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) held 19-24 July 2010 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

Visit http://ongoing-research.cgiar.org/ for more information or to learn how you can contribute to the research map.

New film makes a case for conserving East Africa’s elegant long-horned Ankole cattle

Posted on August 6, 2010 by Paul Karaimu

The genetic diversity of African livestock is increasingly under threat as indigenous livestock varieties are cross-bred, or slowly replaced, with exotic breeds that produce more milk and meat. Exotic livestock varieties are, however, less resistant to African environmental and climatic challenges and are also less resistant to endemic diseases like trypanosomosis (called ‘sleeping sickness’ in people).

The following 3-minute film highlights an initiative supported by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Uganda that is working to conserve purebred Ankole cattle, a breed native in eastern Africa and relied upon by farmers in at least four countries.

In the film, Daniel Semambo, Director of Uganda’s National Animal Genetic Resources Centre and Data Bank, outlines the issues facing many developing countries as they try to improve their livestock productivity and at the same time they try to stem losses of their native livestock breeds and genes.

Livestock researchers in Nairobi honour Heifer President JoLuck, co-winner of the ‘Nobel for Food’

Posted on August 3, 2010 by Paul Karaimu

The World Food Prize, known as the ‘Nobel for Food’ (no Nobel Prize exists for agricultural science), was created in 1986 by Norman Borlaug, who himself won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his work creating high-yielding crop varieties estimated to have saved more than 1 billion lives from famine. The World Food Prize honours those who improve the quality, quantity or availability of food in the world. A co-winner of this year’s World Food Prize, announced on 16 June by US Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton, is Jo Luck, president of the popular American charity Heifer International, which provides farm animals to needy families, who then ‘pass on’ the gift of subsequent offspring to others in need.

Speaking in a seminar held in her honour at the Nairobi campus of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), where she served as a member of ILRI’s Board of Trustees between 2002 and 2005, Jo Luck reflected on her life that was a preparation for the role she now plays. ‘All the time I was learning what has brought me to this road. My experiences as a teacher and as a parent taught me how to recognize both the strong and the weak and how to bring people together and empower them by listening and learning from them,’ she said.

‘I represent many people who are receiving this award through me and I hope to honour and represent them properly,’ she said.

Those lucky enough to meet Jo Luck are struck immediately, and almost physically, by the depth of her energy and passion. Her ability to quickly tell a moving story that inspires people to make a difference in the world has more in common with, say, Oprah Winfrey (who has interviewed Jo Luck on her show) or Bill Clinton (who Jo Luck used to work for) than with other heads of charitable or development organizations.

The results of much of Jo Luck’s life’s work can be seen in communities in the developing world. Since joining Heifer in 1992, she has vastly up-scaled Heifer’s programs, which provide food- and income-producing animals to poor families, and helped broaden Heifer’s agenda, which now includes improving livelihoods through education and community development as well as animal husbandry.

With skilful management and superb communications abilities, Jo Luck built innovative educational initiatives that link grassroots donors in rich countries to recipients in developing countries. This not only brought new (and renewable) resources to poor farmers in developing countries but also gave Americans much better understanding of global hunger and poverty issues. As a result of her efforts, both the scope and impact of Heifer International have grown throughout Africa, the Americas, Asia, the South Pacific and Central and Eastern Europe. At least 10 million families, including 1.5 million families in 2009 alone, have been helped both to put nutritious food on their own tables and to feed others.

Carlos Seré, ILRI’s Director General, said that recognition of Jo Luck’s work with Heifer International ‘shows not only that a committed individual can make a difference in addressing global poverty and food insecurity, but also how much livestock matter and to how many people—animals help some one billion people to sustain their livelihoods and helps many of those to escape poverty.’

‘Jo Luck has impacted world poverty through gifts of livestock’, Seré said. ‘Cows, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, camels and other farmed animals provide poor households with a means of livelihood, with sustenance and with the regular income needed to educate their children, enabling them to finally escape the poverty trap.’

But Jo Luck emphasized that gifts of animal stock, however welcome, are not enough. ‘Livestock production cannot be made sustainable without understanding the environment,’ she said. And this is where she believes researchers, policymakers, government officials and others need to come together. ‘We need to ensure not only that the animals poor people depend on are healthy and productive but also that this livestock productivity can be sustained over the long term without harming the environments of poor communities.’

Jo Luck has worked with ILRI and other groups to bring about closer collaboration between experts and local communities. Such collaboration, for example, is at the heart of a Heifer-run East African Dairy Development Project being conducted in Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda. ILRI works with Heifer on this project along with TechnoServe, ABS-TCM and World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF). ILRI researchers are providing technical advice on such matters as improved breeding and feeding and are monitoring and evaluating the project as it goes along. This project, which is creating dairy ‘hubs’ in the three countries, is helping 180,000 households to participate in, and profit from, a booming dairy industry in East Africa. By joining forces, the partners in this project aim to help one million people, mostly poor rural farmers, double their incomes in the next few years.

The key to such collaboration, Jo Luck says, is simple. ‘We work directly with the people we mean to serve. We listen to them and learn from them. They make their own decisions about what works best for them. We then seek the resources that will let them fulfil their goals.’

Jo Luck will receive the 2010 World Food Prize in Des Moines, Iowa, on 14 October this year. Both she and her co-winner, David Beckmann, President of Bread for the World, another American grassroots organization working to end world poverty and hunger, will make presentations at the event, as will ILRI Director General Carlos Seré and other leading heads of international development work.

For more information about Jo Luck’s work with Heifer please read this related article.

In the following two short video interviews, Jo Luck discusses 'how livestock catalyze community development' and 'delivering livestock research that makes a difference'.

The World Food Prize website has further information about the Laureate Award Ceremony and Borlaug Symposium.

Fruit, catfish and pigeon pea researchers among 60 African women awarded prestigious agricultural fellowships

Posted on July 29, 2010 by Paul Karaimu

Sixty outstanding women agricultural scientists from 10 African countries this week received 2010 fellowships from African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD), an initiative of the Gender and Diversity program of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

In an award ceremony held at the CGIAR World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) in Nairobi, Kenya, on 27 July 2010, women scientists from across the continent, including a fruit pathologist, a catfish breeder and a pigeon pea researcher, were recognized and honoured for their contribution to alleviating hunger and poverty in Africa through their agricultural research and innovation.

Over 780 women scientists from 54 institutions competed for this year’s fellowships.

Margaret Lukuyu

One of this year’s winners is Kenyan Margaret Lukuyu, who worked with the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in a Kenya Smallholder Dairy Project that helped raise milk production among the country’s smallholder farmers. Lukuyu’s role in this project, conducted from 1997 to 2005, was to research and promote strategic concentrate feeding regimes that could be easily adopted by Kenya’s many smallholder livestock keepers. This project not only helped better the livelihoods of smallholder dairy farmers in central Kenya but also was instrumental in bringing about national dairy policy reform and increased support for the country’s massive ‘informal milk sector’, which trades in unpasteurized (‘raw’) milk.

‘I’m excited by the AWARD Fellowship and honoured that my work in improving the dairy sector has been recognized,’ she said. Now working with the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), Lukuyu is looking forward to the training and other benefits she will now receive from the AWARD program, including building her leadership qualities, learning how to write grant proposals and to access information, and opportunities to network with other scientists as she embarks on her PhD research.

Esther Kanduma

Esther Kanduma, another 2010 AWARD winner, is a researcher based at the Biosciences eastern and central Africa (BecA)-ILRI hub located within ILRI’s Nairobi laboratories. Kanduma is focusing her PhD studies on using the genetic diversity of the tick Rhipicephalus appendiculatus, which transmits the parasite that causes East Coast fever to livestock, to come up with effective anti-tick vaccines. The award recognized her contribution to ILRI’s East Coast fever vaccine project, which is currently piloting a vaccine in East Africa to protect the region’s cattle herds against this lethal infection. ‘Through the exposure that AWARD fellowships provide, I hope to improve my ability to communicate, to increase my professional visibility and to help build a network of scientists researching tick and tick-borne diseases,’ she said.

Other winners of AWARD 2010 fellowships doing agricultural research at ILRI include Bridgit Muasa and Teddy Amuge.

Speaking during the ceremony, Vicki Wilde, director of the AWARD program, said: ‘Today we debunked the myth that qualified African women researchers “aren’t out there”—an excuse often used to justify why women aren’t hired or promoted within agricultural research institutions, universities and corporations.’ The AWARD fellowships, she added, show that ‘African women are offering smart and innovative solutions that are relevant to real issues in the continent’.

Now in its third year, the AWARD program has received over 1600 applications by qualified women scientists from all over Africa. It has awarded over 180 fellowships, with the fellows benefiting from two years of hands-on training in mentoring, partnerships, science skills, and leadership. The fellowships are awarded for intellectual merit, leadership capacity and the potential of a scientist’s research to improve the daily lives of the continent’s millions of women and other smallholder farmers. Through its fellowship program, AWARD works directly to break down traditional barriers to the development of female scientific careers. Such roadblocks include a lack of role models and mentors for aspiring African women agricultural scientists.

The AWARD program is a project of the CGIAR’s Gender and Diversity Program and is supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the United States Agency for International Development.

A list of 2010 AWARD Fellowship Recipients including their research topics is available at http://awardfellowships.org/~awfellow/images/stories/award/downloads/2010%20Fellows_research%20areas.pdf

To watch the speech by Vicki Wilde, Director, CGIAR Gender & Diversity Program and AWARD, please visit http://www.blip.tv/file/3935740.

To watch the speech by Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, Vice President (Policy and Partnerships) for the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, please visit http://blip.tv/file/3934337.

For more information please also visit www.awardfellowships.org and www.cgiar.org

Edinburgh-Wellcome-ILRI project addresses neglected zoonotic diseases in western Kenya

Posted on July 28, 2010 by Paul Karaimu

‘Neglected diseases are diseases of neglected peoples’—Eric Fèvre

Animals and people live close together throughout the developing world. Chickens, goats, pigs, cows and other farmed animals range freely in and out of rural homesteads as families go about their daily lives. This space-sharing by people and their livestock makes good use of the small plots of land managed by the world’s many smallholder farmers; food that might otherwise go to waste can be fed to the animals, for example, while animal manure feeds the cropland by fertilizing it. Most of the world’s smallholder farmers depend on their animals for milk, meat and eggs to feed their families, with the surplus generating much-needed regular household income.

However, such close proximity to their animals puts many people at risk of ‘zoonotic’ diseases, which are those transmitted between people and animals. Remarkably, more than 60% of all human diseases are infections they can get from animals and more than 70% of today’s emerging diseases, such as bird flu, are zoonotic.

Because human and animal health are particularly intertwined in poor countries where people and livestock live in such close proximity, efforts to improve human health in the developing world need to focus on improving animal as well as human health. This makes it necessary for medical and veterinary experts to collaborate and for livestock farmers and herders to be made aware of the disease risks their animals pose to the health of their households.

A project begun in 2009 and funded by the Wellcome Trust, with other support from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), is studying neglected zoonotic diseases and their epidemiology to raise levels of health in poor rural communities. The project, People, Animals and Their Zoonoses, is based in Kenya’s Busia District, which sits on the country’s western border, with Uganda.

Eric Fèvre, who is working jointly for the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the University of Edinburgh, is the project’s principal investigator and leader. Fèvre says this study is important.

‘Zoonotic diseases are a great burden on poor communities’, Fèvre says. ‘In a poor household where animals and people are in regular close contact, there is a significant chance of zoonotic diseases spreading. Typically in such areas, animals have access to human waste, there is little preventative health services for livestock and there is poor-quality food and forage for people and animals.’

With insufficient and/or unreliable health infrastructure and with many poor people not readily seeking professional medical attention, these diseases often go underreported or misdiagnosed. Complicating and aggravating this already serious health situation, he says, is that ‘in some cases, other non-zoonotic infections may already be present.’

Furthermore, as reported in the May 2010 issue of Veterinary Record, Fèvre says:

‘While malaria is undoubtedly a very serious health issue, its overdiagnosis hides many other problems. To compound this, people in marginalised communities can easily fall off the policy radar – many may be born, live and die without official record being made of them and, as such, they have a weak, or nonexistent, political voice. Thus, while the diseases are grouped as “neglected zoonotic diseases,” it would be equally correct to identify them as “diseases of neglected populations”.’

The Kenya zoonotic study is a four-year project that brings together ILRI scientists in Kenya with researchers from the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Edinburgh and from the Kenya Medical Research Institute, the latter of whom are already working in much of Kenya’s Western and Nyanza provinces. These epidemiologists, veterinarians, medical health professionals and laboratory technologists will visit over 500 homesteads in Busia to collect data and samples from people and livestock; those people found ill will be treated or referred to specialists.

The project data will be used to quantify the place of zoonoses in the context of other infectious diseases and to refine our understanding of factors that put people and livestock at risk. The study team also aims to come up with diagnostic tests that can be used in the field and to design cheap, easy-to-implement health interventions for both people and livestock. The project is focusing on bovine tuberculosis, cysticercosis, brucellosis, Q-fever, Rift Valley fever and trypanosomiasis (in cattle) /sleeping sickness (in people) and their impacts on both livestock and the people.

The results of this project are expected not only to improve the health aspects of the relationship between people and their livestock in western Kenya but also to provide important background for future research and policymaking on zoonotic issues.

More information can be found at www.zoonotic-diseases.org

The May 2010 issue of the Veterinary Record gives an excellent account of this ambitious human-animal health project: http://veterinaryrecord.bvapublications.com/misc/about.dtl (subscription required).

New report assessing bioenergy access and delivery in Kenya recommends, among other changes, that all family members share the burden of collecting firewood

Posted on July 22, 2010 by Paul Karaimu

Women in rural areas have a heavy workload that included delivery of food, water and fuel for household needs

New research findings on bioenergy access and delivery in Kenya are recommending greater collaboration between stakeholders to promote sustainable use of bioresources, biofuels and bioresidues.

In a socioeconomic baseline survey carried out by the eastern Africa office of Practical Action Consulting, in Kenya, between March and December 2008, researchers evaluated the bioenergy needs, gaps, status and opportunities for poor people in Kenya. The research focused on the socioeconomic links and patterns of bioenergy use, access and delivery for the poor in Kenya and generated baseline data that can guide national decision-making.

The report, ‘Bioenergy and Poverty in Kenya: Attitudes, Actors and Activities’, looks at bioenergy use and access by communities in Kenya, with information collected from Kisumu, Lodwar, Mandera, Nairobi and Nakuru.

The report says more awareness of alternative bioenergy technologies and resources is needed in Kenya’s rural and peri-urban areas. It recommends training communities in producing and using low-cost energy-saving stoves and in planting trees. The long-term impacts of firewood and charcoal use by households and institutions should be better known, the report says, and charcoal use should be matched by tree replanting.

The report also calls for a change in attitudes regarding female provision of household fuel; such provision must begin to be seen, say the researchers, as a joint responsibility of all family members. And development programs should begin to treat energy and gender as central, not peripheral, issues in development.

The full report is available at http://www.pisces.or.ke/pubs/index.html

ILRI workshop trains staff in social media for research communication

Posted on July 14, 2010 by Paul Karaimu

A workshop on ‘Africa Learning and Exchange on Local Content, Social Media and Agricultural/Rural Knowledge Sharing’ opened on the Nairobi campus of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) last week.

From Monday through Wednesday, 5–7 July, the focus of the workshop was on ‘Research Communication’ and participants, who included ILRI staff and communication practitioners from research and non-profit organizations from Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania and Zimbabwe, were trained on use of social media tools in research communications. Participants also shared their experiences of using these tools.

The research communication workshop taught participants how to recover and disseminate research, identify and counter bias in search tools and use social media/web 2.0 tools and skills and approaches. Participants gained hands-on experience in working with wikis, creating blogs and adding content, using social bookmarking tools, such as Delicious, and using feeds to organize information from different web resources.

Participants also identified the challenges and opportunities offered by social media tools in Africa. They used a participatory wiki to document and share the workshop proceedings and edited and produced short video clips highlighting their views of the workshop.

Evelyn Katingi, a research coordinator with ILRI, said the workshop helped her ‘appreciate the value of social media tools in better organizing my work.’ She added ‘I look forward to using these tools in my work and in training others how to use them.’

A second part of the workshop, held 8–9 July, focused on sharing experiences of using modern online communication, social media and digital tools in gathering and sharing local African content. Participants included community radio hosts and managers, social workers and trainers who also explored how digital and online output from their organizations in Africa can be combined and promoted externally. The participants developed a shared understanding of how these tools and approaches can best be adapted to the African context to promote knowledge sharing.

Output from this week-long workshop, which was organized by ILRI and a Dutch-funded initiative, Emergent Issues in Information and Knowledge Management (IKM) and International Development, known as the IKM Emergent Research Programme, will inform preparation for an AgKnowledge Africa ShareFair that will take place at the ILRI campus in Addis Ababa in October 2010.

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