Innovation network platforms to overcome fodder scarcity

Posted on December 8, 2009 by ILRIComms

In this short video, Ranjitha Puskur from ILRI shares some lessons emerging from the DFID-funded Fodder Innovation Project.

The project looks at fodder scarcity and how to address it, but from the perspectives of capacities, policies and institutions.

This current second phase of the project, she says, emerged from the realisation that the availability of technologies is not really the limiting factor, policy and institutional factors are the major bottlenecks.

She briefly introduces the innovation systems approach that underpins the project: Essentially, the aim is to form and facilitate a network of different actors in a chain or continuum of knowledge production and its use, mobilizing all their various resources and capacities to address a problem.

What outcomes and changes has she seen?

At the farm level, farmers are changing their livestock feeding and management practices; there is an emerging demand for technologies, inputs and services that, ironically, were earlier promoted without success.

“Farmers are seeing the need for knowledge and can articulate demands to service providers.”

She emphasizes that “getting a network of actors isn’t an easy process, it takes time”. Different organizations with different interests and motives have to be brought around the table to contribute and benefit.

“It needs great facilitation skills and negotiating skills which are not very often core competences of researchers like us.”

Beyond facilitation of this network formation, “we also see that linkages don’t happen automatically” … we need a facilitating or broker organisation to create them.

In her project, they work through key partner organisations: “This works well, but they needed much support and mentoring from us.”

She concludes with two final observations: Policies are a very critical factor and it is important to engage policy makers from the outset, ensuring that we know what they really want, and that the evidence base is solid.

Traditional project management approaches don’t seem to work in such projects: We need nimble financial management, and very responsive project management.

“Very traditional logframes and M&E systems seem very inadequate.”

See her presentation with Alan Duncan

More information on this project

View the video:

[blip.tv ?posts_id=2966873&dest=-1]

Milk–the perfect food: South-South East Africa-South Asia symposium

Posted on December 2, 2009 by ILRIComms

A South-South Symposium to Improve Safety and Distribution in the Dairy Sector
1 â€“ 4 December 2009, Nairobi, Kenya

In both India and East Africa some 80-90% of milk is handled by the informal, un-organized dairy sector. We usually associate milk with cattle, but domesticated ungulates such as sheep, goats, yaks, water buffalo, horses, and camels are other primary milk producers in developing countries. The largest producer and consumer of cattle’s milk in the world is India.

Milk provides the primary source of nutrition for young mammals before they are able to digest other types of food, and carries the mother’s antibodies to the baby. It can reduce the risk of many diseases in the baby. The exact components of raw milk varies by species, but it contains significant amounts of saturated fat, protein and calcium as well as vitamin C.

The food value of an animal killed for meat can be matched by perhaps one year’s worth of milk from the same animal, which will keep producing milkâ€”in convenient daily portionsâ€”for years.

Despite the importance of this simple, opaque liquid, there has been little education in the handling of such an important nutritional substance nor to the organization of its distribution.

In Kenya, which has the largest dairy herd in Africa, including South Africa, about 1.6 million rural smallholder households depend on dairy production for their main livelihood, and dairy is the largest agricultural subsector by contribution to GDP, larger than horticulture, tea or coffee. Again, the large majority of these producers depend on the informal sector market, which employs over 30,000 people along the supply chain. Despite their immense contribution to livelihoods, informal milk marketing systems have historically suffered neglect and opposition from decision-makers and development agents, often because of concerns over quality and safety.

In East Africa, key players have been meeting regularly over the last three years to share lessons on these issues under an association formed to facilitate exchange of new approaches and to harmonize policies, the East Africa Dairy Regulators Association Council (EADRAC). With the nascent development of awareness in India of possibilities for upgrading informal markets, an event to allow the sharing of lessons with key players in East Africa engaged in similar milk marketing systems would be of immense benefit to both sides and the researchers involved.

To this end, a symposium is proposed that would bring together the key researchers and decision-makers from East Africa and northeast India concerning the informal dairy sector. Key outputs will be shared experiences and demonstrations of innovation through structured field visits and presentations of approaches and evidence. This will support the dissemination of new approaches for managing the informal sector that will improve the livelihoods of millions working in the informal dairy sectors of both regions, as well as consumers of milk and dairy products.

Case studies on these topics will be presented and specific strategies and recommendations developed. Participants will be dairy decision-makers and researchers from India and East Africa. The symposium will be linked to a regional EADRAC meeting to be held in East Africa and is provisionally planned for 1 â€“ 4 Dec 2009 in Nairobi, Kenya. The symposium is being organized by the International Livestock Research Institute and the Association (ILRI) for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa.

Programme:
Days 1-2: Representatives from EADRAC, India, ASARECA and ILRI will share and discuss case study presentations.
Day 3: Synthesis of lessons
Day 4: Field tour

African meat for global tables

Posted on November 23, 2009 by ILRIComms

As new channels for African exports become increasingly available, economists and policy makers are focusing more attention on how best to match producers to buyers in Europe and elsewhere, including Africa itself. A recent paper explores the potential and pitfalls of exporting African livestock products.

‘What can Africa contribute to global meat demand?’ recently appeared in Outlook on Agriculture (Vol 38 No 3, pp. 223-233, September 2009). It is authored by Karl M Rich, who works with both the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the American University in Cairo, and will move to the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) in Oslo, Norway, in February 2010.

Observing that global demand and prices for meat are currently at unprecedented highs, Rich cites International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) data that project that annual per capita meat demand in Africa will double to 22 kg by 2050. This increase will necessitate corresponding rises in demand for cereals as well as livestock. Estimates from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) suggest similar increases in demand throughout the developing world.

These increases bring new opportunities for alternative sources of supply. At first glance, it would seem that Africa would have a distinct advantage in meeting the increasing demand within the continent. However, Africa’s ability to compete with Europe, Asia and the Americas has historically been constrained by low productivity, prevalence of animal diseases and the difficulty of meeting high global standards for health and safety. These constraints must be addressed before Africa can become a major player, and Rich’s paper examines the possibilities of bringing this happy situation about.

Rich begins with an overview of Africa’s role in the global meat trade, both imports and exports. His efforts in this regard are nothing less than heroic. The data from each of Africa’s fifty-odd countries are accumulated in enormously different ways, and the most recent data for some countries are several years old. Nonetheless, the figures are important, and to date no other author has made comparable efforts to get a handle on the situation. Rich does not express a great deal of optimism for the short or medium term. He estimates, for example, that at present Africa provides only about 1% of global meat exports for beef, pork and chicken.

A comparison of regional export shares is even more daunting. Table 1, which presents FAO data, indicates that the overwhelming majority of products come from southern Africa, notably South Africa, Botswana and Namibia, while goat and pig products are sourced predominantly from East Africa. Sheep products come mainly from North Africa (mainly Sudan). Meat exports from the rest of Africa, especially Central and Western Africa, are miniscule. Eight other tables and five figures in the paper provide detailed information of the variety and amount of meat imports and exports among African countries. In the case of exports, information is provided concerning the countries importing African meat products.

Among significant competitor nations are the emerging giant economies of the developing world, especially Brazil and India. These two countries account for a huge slice of the African market, constituting the main source of beef imports—both frozen and fresh—to seven of the largest African customer countries.

Rich points out that one important advantage that India, Brazil and other Latin American countries (Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay) have over Africa is scale. According to the most recent data from FAO (2006), the total stock of cattle in Africa is about 232 million head. By contrast, Brazil alone has over 207 million head, while India has 180 million as well as nearly 100 million head of buffalo. The African countries with the largest stocks are Ethiopia and Sudan, but neither comes close to those of Brazil or India, and both have fewer head than Argentina.

While African exporters will not be able to compete with Brazil or India in the short to medium term, inroads to foreign markets have been made by some southern African countries to the European Union (EU). This trade is driven by preferential access to the EU brought about through the Cotonou Agreement which provides tariff reductions for African and other developing economies. But even with such international agreements in place, African countries have been unable to fill the quotas provided, largely because of the rigourous standards for compliance with EU sanitary regulations. To retain access to European markets, for example, Botswana and Namibia have had to set aside areas free from foot and mouth disease (FMD)—an expensive arrangement that precludes raising cattle by traditional African husbandry methods. Furthermore, without these preferences it is unlikely that southern African producers could compete with the likes of Brazil.

Rich concludes his paper with a section entitled The road ahead: where and how can Africa contribute to global meat demand? Before discussing the most likely methods for improving Africa’s competiveness with other meat-exporting nations, however, he cautions that ultimately, significant improvements in productivity, breeding, infrastructure and marketing will be required over and above the options he identifies.

The author identifies five options.

Commodity-based trade. Diseases such as FMD persist in developing countries, limiting market access from developing markets to lucrative ones in the developed world. Commodity-based approaches focus on attributes of a product such as quality and safety rather than the disease status of its place of origin. It is argued that deboned and properly matured beef, for example, poses virtually no threat of transmission of diseases such as FMD. While commodity-based approaches could pave the way for increased trade from Africa, a number of gaps remain. In particular, will African countries be the major winners? If not, what further constrains Africa’s market access? A recent report by Karl Rich and Brian Perry to the UK Department for International Development explores this option further.
Certification programs and disease-free compartments. Africa can raise its profile in global markets by demonstrating compliance with SPS standards. A compartment is a network of micro-level disease-free areas linked to each other and maintained through high levels of monitoring. A good example of this option is discussed in the paper mentioned in the box item above, a USAID-funded program currently under way in Ethiopia.
Branded niche products. This option focuses on the strengths that Africa can offer global buyers by building and encouraging trade associations and marketing organizations. The author cites several examples—Farmer’s Choice of Kenya, Farm Assured Namibian Meat, the Kalahari Kid Corporation, the Namibian Meat Board, the South African Meat Industry Company and the National Emergent Red Meat Producers Organisation. These associations promote local products, engage in branding and quality assurance and build the capacity of emerging farmers.
Regional integration and trade. Rich points out that despite the existence of regional cooperation agreements, barriers between member countries continue to hamper trade. Reducing these barriers will be crucial if Africa is to develop and harness the scale necessary to compete in international markets and lower costs. Investments in marketing and promotion among regional partners will be required for countries to enter and sustain effective trading in high-value markets.
Domestic markets. Both formal and informal channels for meat products have been developed within each African country over the past several years. Because domestic prices in fact frequently exceed international prices, finding ways to deliver local products at competitive prices is an option with good potential, though these products will increasingly compete with low-cost imports. Competing effectively on price will be crucial for African producers to be successful in such channels.

The abstract of the paper can be accessed online.
For additional information, contact Karl Rich at k.rich@cgiar.org.

Regional strategy for controlling trypanocide resistance in West Africa

Posted on October 19, 2009 by ILRIComms

Smallholder dairy tool box

Posted on July 7, 2009 by ILRIComms

This CD by ILRI and on Smallholder dairy tool box was released on 7 July, 2009.

This CD: a new ‘tool box’ has been developed to make it easier for organizations to provide easy-to-understand information to anyone involved in smallholder dairy production. Known as the Smallholder Dairy Tool Box (SDTB), its software allows users to access useful information and provide it in formats that are appropriate to a whole range of stakeholders – from farmers and delivery agents to planners and policy makers. The tool box is intended to overcome the fact that the training and information materials currently available are often inadequate and difficult to access – especially for farmers and extension workers who have very little spare time.

New threats, new thinking at the animal-human disease interface

Posted on May 22, 2009 by ILRIComms

To get serious about controlling emerging human disease, we're going to have to get serious about understanding and controlling their origin in animal disease, often in developing countries

As the world's governments raced to deal with a looming flu pandemic starting some two weeks ago, in late April 2009, World Health Organisation (WHO) officials confirmed that the world is better prepared than ever before to deal with a pandemic, thanks largely to six years of research and preparations to battle bird flu and SARS. Nearly 150 countries are now known to have drawn up contingency plans covering everything from the response of health services to travel restrictions and international co-operation.

Although it contains animal genetic components, the current influenza A(H1N1) virus has not been diagnosed in animals before and has spread from person to person, threatening an influenza pandemic which, according to scientists, is inevitable, even though no one can predict the timing. Three serious influenza pandemics occurred in the 20th century, with each new virus eventually infecting up to a third of the world over the course of one to two years: the 1918 ‘Spanish flu’ responsible for more than 40 million deaths, followed by the 1957 ‘Asian’ and 1968 ‘Hong Kong flu’, which killed between 1 and 3 million people worldwide,

The history of flu epidemics and pandemics, which can be traced back with some accuracy for the past 300 years, tells us that outbreaks occur somewhere in the world in most years and pandemics, which are epidemics that spread worldwide, at 10- to 50-year intervals. Despite influenza and its causative organism being the most studied of viral diseases and pathogens until the advent of HIV/AIDS two decades ago, little has been done in the past century to change the pattern of influenza infections.

2009 June 11 Swine flu update:

WHO on 11 June raised the pandemic alert level from phase 5 to 6, indicating a global pandemic outbreak
This will trigger drug makers to speed production of a swine flu vaccine and prompt governments to devote more money to containing the virus.
Although appearing less deadly than seasonal flu, experts worry the virus could mutate into a more lethal strain during the Southern Hemisphere’s coming flu season.
Experts also worry that poorer countries could be overwhelmed with cases they do not have the capacity to treat.
The last pandemic, the Hong Kong flu of 1968, killed 700,000 people worldwide. Ordinary flu kills 250,000 to 500,000 people each year

11 May 2009 brief from the World Health Organisation

For more information, we encourage our readers to read the WHO brief copied below and linked to here:
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/assess/disease_swineflu_assess_20090511/en/index.html

This WHO brief of 11 May 2009 provides much useful background information for understanding expert concerns about the current new flu virus, particularly how it may affect the developing countries of the southern hemisphere, where the flu season is about to begin. These expert concerns include the following.

The influenza A(H1N1) could mutate into a more lethal form in a subsequent wave of this pandemic, as the virus causing the 1918 pandemic flu did.
Having not appeared in humans or animals before, scientists anticipate that pre-existing immunity to the virus will be low or non-existent, or largely confined to older population groups that have had flu vaccinations and therefore striking down more people of a younger age group, than viruses causing normal so-called 'seasonal flu'.
This new flu virus, although as yet causing generally mild illness in the 29 countries outside Mexico where it has so far been confirmed, could cause severe illness in developing countries, particularly:
• people suffering malnutrition
• poor communities with inadequate health care
• the greatly increased numbers of people now afflicted with chronic conditions such as heart disease and diabetes, conditions that can greatly increase the severity of illness this flu causes (although these chronic conditions afflicted mostly affluent populations until a few decades ago, a full 85% of people suffering them today live in low- and middle-income countries)
As this new influenza A(H1N1) virus spreads to the southern hemisphere with the start of the flu season here, it may meet the H5N1 bird flu virus that is widely circulating among the poultry populations of some developing countries; no one knows how, under pressure of the new A(H1N1) human-to-human transmitted flu virus, the H5N1 bird-to-bird transmitted flu virus might change, including whether the latter, more lethal, bird flu virus could be helped to mutate into a form transmitted easily among people. (The more lethal H5N1 bird flu virus, now endemic in many areas, has thankfully to date been transmitted only rarely directly from person to person; almost all the people infected have received the virus from handling infected poultry, which has helped keep the virus from spreading widely among human populations.)

11 May 2009 Update

11 May 2009 Update As reported in Time Magazine this week (11 May 2009), ‘new research suggests that the WHO acted wisely in raising the pandemic alarm — and that the threat of H1N1 may not have passed. In a study released May 11 in the journal Science, researchers from Imperial College London, along with WHO staff and Mexican scientists, conclude that H1N1 is transmitted considerably easier than the regular seasonal flu and is about as deadly as the 1957 Asian flu, which killed about 2 million people worldwide. A World Bank study last year found that a pandemic of similar severity today might kill 14.2 million people around the world, and cut 2% from the global economy.’

7 May 2009 Update

As of 7 May 2009, there were 2,371 confirmed cases of swine flu in 24 countries and 46 deaths from this infection, all but 2 of the deaths occurring in Mexico. Scientists described 11 cases of Americans who were infected before the current outbreak with swine flus that partly matched the new epidemic strain that emerged in Mexico in March 2009. The first case was in December 2005. In articles published online in The New England Journal of Medicine, virologists from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) described those cases, most of them in young people in the Midwest who touched or were near pigs. All had a ‘triple reassortant’ virus that combined human, swine and avian flu genes. The H1N1 flu now spreading out from Mexico also has those genes, as well as genes from Eurasian swine. The CDC reports that the pandemic does not appear to be petering out, that we appear to be still on the upswing of the epidemic curve, and that only about 10% of those infected had a travel history to Mexico.

The role of livestock scientists in the developing world
Livestock scientists have a vital role to play in helping to predict, prevent and control zoonotic diseases, which are all those transmitted between animals and people. Remarkably, zoonoses make up more than 60% of all human infectious diseases and more than 70% of all emerging infectious diseases. These diseases occur most frequently in Asia and Africa, where limited resources hinder both surveillance and response. The growing threat of emerging diseases such as Nipah and SARS, and re-emerging diseases such as Rift Valley Fever and avian influenza, has served as a wakeup call to animal health and public health services that their collaboration is necessary if these threats are to be minimized. There is increasing recognition that, for a number of zoonotic diseases, the most effective way to protect the health of the public is to control disease in the animal host.

The work of livestock scientists working in and for developing countries has special relevance in tackling these animal-human diseases, because within developing countries today, fast changes in food systems wrought by skyrocketing demand for, and production of, livestock foods is creating new niches and transmission pathways for pathogens, with unprecedented numbers of diseases emerging and re-emerging in recent decades. New tools and approaches for managing diseases in developing countries are urgently needed.

The animal-human disease interface
Most pathogens (61%) that affect people also affect animals; such shared infecting organisms and infections are known as ‘zoonotic’. A full 71% of all the world’s emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic, or transmissible between people and animals. In addition to swine flu, bird flu and SARS, these diseases include such devastating plagues as BSE (mad cow disease), HIV/AIDS, ebola and Rift Valley fever. The bugs that cause these diseases are notorious for their ability to evolve. Flu viruses, for example, can change both from severe to mild and from mild to severe.

Researchers at ILRI have been working at the livestock-human disease interface, supporting better integration of veterinary and public health surveillance programs, for three decades. ILRI’s particular interests are aspects of zoonotic diseases that impact the world’s poorest communities, where animal husbandry is a way of life and a central means of livelihood for more than half a billion people. ILRI and its partners, for example, make evidence-based assessments of the different impacts on the poor of employing different disease-control methods, thereby helping policymakers determine optimal pro-poor strategies for different regions and agricultural production systems of the developing world.

ILRI works with many research institutions within developing countries to better control zoonotic diseases at local, national and regional levels. It works with WHO and its international network of institutions to bolster disease surveillance. It works with the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) on participatory epidemiology, a grassroots approach to disease surveillance and control that is being successfully applied in the battle against bird flu in Indonesia. And it works with regional agencies such as the Africa Union / Inter-African Bureau for Animal Resources to improve laboratory testing and diagnosis of bird flu and other infectious livestock diseases.

ILRI and its partners are also investigating risk-based approaches that focus on key hazards and maximize benefits with available resources. With case studies in Africa and Asia, and concepts derived from ‘one medicine’ and ‘one health’, ILRI scientists argue that a ‘risk-analysis framework’ both can and should be extended to integrate risks to animal, human and environmental health.

The role of policy
ILRI also works with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and other institutions on providing evidenced-based policy support so that we don’t fall into the trap of doing more harm than good in our efforts to control infections, particularly in poor countries which can least afford such mistakes.

Some of the most profound consequences of disease threats are economic rather than medical, with inappropriate policies devastating local and national economies. Egypt’s on-going culling of its entire population of some 300,000 pigs, for example, is reported to be reigniting religious and economic tensions, and may end up doing more harm than good. The pigs are kept not by Egypt’s majority Muslim population, which views the animals as unclean, but by Egypt’s Coptic Christians, many of whom maintain pigs on the rubbish heaps of shantytowns, where entire families pick out organic waste to feed their pigs. On the other hand, Egyptian authorities may be trying to prevent a repeat of events two years ago, when they were criticized for not responding swiftly enough to an outbreak of bird flu, which killed 26 people in the country, three in just the last month.

‘Misconceptions and inappropriate responses can spread quickly during the early stages of a new disease outbreak,’ says John McDermott, a veterinary epidemiologist and ILRI’s director of research. ‘This “swine flu” is spread by people, not by pigs,’ he said. ‘So most authorities are appropriately focusing their current attention on stopping the spread of swine flu among people.’ (Bird flu, in contrast, is spread by birds, so authorities focus on controlling that disease within poultry rather than human populations.) This new swine flu virus, and our reactions to it, like the more lethal bird flu and SARS before it, should provide us with many lessons for the future.

Research gaps
We still know little about the nature of this new influenza virus strain, other than its genetic makeup is a ‘mashup’ of human, bird and pig elements (making the name ‘swine flu’ something of a misnomer we shall probably have to live with; ‘Spanish flu’ didn’t originate in Spain, but the name stuck anyhow). We don’t know yet when it first made the jump from pig to person, why it has been so deadly in Mexico but not elsewhere, or how virulent it will eventually prove to be. The pathogenicity of a virus can become milder or more severe over time. Until now, the influenza A(H1N1) virus thankfully has proven relatively mild, with most of those infected responding well to usual flu treatments and recovering.

Our ignorance of this new strain of swine flu virus is partly due to our neglect of animal health matters. In rich as well as poor countries, veterinary health care and research remains chronically under-funded. And there is increasing need for disease control policymakers, agents and researchers to collaborate at the interface of the human-and-animal-health sectors, exchanging up-to-date information on disease outbreaks and transmission.

Controlling emerging infectious diseases
‘To get serious about preventing new zoonotic infections from spreading,’ says Carlos Seré, director general of the Africa-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), ‘we need to get serious about veterinary resources. We need new ways to look for new pathogens infecting animals, new ways to assess those which may be most dangerous, and new ways to determine how they may be transmitted to people. We have just had a demonstration as to the danger of waiting for a new flu to emerge and begin spreading among people before trying to contain it.’

The influenza A(H1N1) virus is spreading rapidly because in our ever-shrinking, ever-globalizing world, pathogens are crossing species and borders with increasing ease. In such a world, says Seré, ‘we ignore veterinary health problems in developing countries at our peril.’ With high-quality collaboration among countries (rich and poor alike), scientific disciplines (e.g. socio-economics as well as genetics), and sectors (e.g. medical, veterinary, agricultural, environmental, wildlife), Seré argues, we can manage today’s emerging disease threats.

Because animals are the origin of most emerging diseases, they could play the same role that canaries did in the mines, in that case, alerting the coal workers to the presence of noxious gases or too little oxygen.

‘We should be spotting many infectious disease threats not in people, as we did in the case of this new flu virus,’ says Seré, ‘but rather in animal populations.’ That should give authorities more time to design and implement interventions to protect people from becoming infected. ‘But as we’ve seen in recent outbreaks of bird flu and Rift Valley fever, all too often it is people rather than animals that serve as our sentinels, sickening and dying after the disease has begun circulating in local livestock populations.’ That’s largely because in poor countries, livestock diseases tend to go unreported (it’s hard to tell one livestock disease from another in countries with spotty veterinary coverage) and/or underappreciated (people facing serious human health problems have little time to spare worrying about animal diseases), and/or ignored (it may be considered political suicide to report a disease outbreak that might have large economic consequences).

‘To find better ways of controlling human diseases,’ Seré concludes, ‘we’re going to have to find better ways of understanding and controlling diseases in both domesticated and wild animal populations. And we’re all going to have to work together, breaking down traditional barriers between organizations and scientific disciplines in the process. We need new thinking to tackle these new threats. And bringing diverse expertise together is the best way of staying on top of fast-evolving situations that threaten our global public health—as well as the well being of the world’s poorer livestock keeping communities.’

For more information contact

John Mc Dermott
Deputy Director General-ILRI
Nairobi, Kenya
Email: j.mcdermott@cgiar.org
Telephone: +254 20 422 3207

Markets that work: Making a living from livestock

Posted on December 23, 2008 by ILRIComms

ILRI Annual Report 2007 is now available for download. Read the foreword by the chair of ILRI board of trustees Uwe Werblow and ILRI's director general Carlos Seré.

Foreword

This is a time of intense change, with volatile food prices, a near meltdown of financial markets and the continuing growing threats of climate change and emerging diseases.

Research by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and its partners is helping to address these issues by working at the intersection of small-scale livestock production systems with these new global forces. We see strong growth in demand for research into dynamic markets for livestock products; the growing competing demands for human food, animal feed and biofuels; the growing environmental concerns about the expansion of livestock production; bird flu and other emerging zoonotic diseases; and the impact of climate change on animal agriculture in developing countries.

Livestock is one of the fastest growing sub-sectors in developing countries, where it already accounts for a third of GDP and is predicted to become the most important agricultural sub-sector by 2020 in terms of added value. We view market-led pro-poor growth, the topic of this year’s annual report, not as a silver bullet that will solve all the ills of the livestock sector in poor countries but rather as one of several pillars of livestock development. The livestock markets and trading systems of developing countries are as yet remarkably poorly studied and understood. What we do know is that they are far more complex and dynamic and have far higher through-put than is commonly assumed.

The increasing demand for livestock products is creating opportunities for improving the welfare of millions of poor people who depend on livestock for their livelihoods, but changes in production, procurement, processing and retailing of food, along with environmental and food safety concerns, erosion of animal genetic resources and the threat of emerging infectious diseases, threaten the potential of the poor to benefit from the on-going livestock revolution. With these new challenges, we believe livestock researchers must find new ways of working, including adopting innovation systems and valuechain approaches to their work.

The role of research is never greater than during times of change. With our research investors and partners, we continue to look for ways to adapt ourselves to continual change while seeking technical, institutional and policy solutions to complex problems. We continue to support national work to build indigenous livestock research capacity and to develop institutional arrangements that encourage continual learning. And we continue to look for effective ways to integrate research results and share research-based knowledge with those who need it most. We thank those investors and partners who continued to make this all possible in 2007.

Uwe Werblow Carlos Seré
Chairman of the Board of Trustees Director General

Download ILRI Annual Report 2007

Markets that work: Making a living from livestock (3MB PDF File)

A new approach for safer food in informal markets

Posted on October 23, 2008 by ILRIComms

Women play the major role in food supply in developing countries, but too often their ability to feed their families safely is compromised; one outcome is high levels of foodborne disease.

Millions of smallscale farmers in Africa, mostly women, supply the surging demand for livestock products. Most meat, milk, eggs, and fish is sold in informal markets where food safety regulation and inspection has failed and alternatives have not emerged. The result is high levels of foodborne disease amongst poor consumers and limited access to higher value markets for smallscale producers.

Safer foods benefits both producers and consumers
Safer livestock products can generate both health and wealth for the poor, but attaining safe food and safe food production in developing countries requires a radical change in food safety management. Now you can get quality food online and use coupons and discounts from Raise. International food safety standards are not always appropriate to developing countries due to lack of resources, infrastructure and incentives to encourage and monitor implementation.

In response to the problem of unsafe food in informal markets, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and partners have been conducting research on livestock market chains in urban Uganda, Kenya, and Nigeria to better understanding the benefits and harms of livestock-keeping and how associated health risks can be better managed. A report on work in progress, entitled ‘Participatory risk assessment: a new approach for safer food in vulnerable African communities, was published in a special issue of Development in Practice.

Women are key players in food supply
ILRI epidemiologist, food safety expert and lead author of the paper, Delia Grace says, ‘In rich countries eating out is a sign of wealth, but in developing countries it is often a sign of poverty. Buying ‘street’ food makes sense for the poor since it is often cheaper than buying cooking fuel and raw ingredients. Millions of poor people are dependent on these informal markets, where both raw and cooked animal source foods are prepared and sold.
‘Most of the food sold in these traditional markets is produced and prepared by women. It is a huge market but difficult to quantify or regulate. As a result, it tends to be ignored. But finding new approaches for making foods sold in informal markets safer will benefit both poor producers and poor consumers’ says Grace.

Food safety management needs to be adapted to local contexts
Risk-based approaches that take into account the extent of harm caused by food-borne disease to consumers and the likelihood of its happening are current international best practice. But these approaches are complex and do not work in informal settings in developing countries where most of the poor buy and sell their food.

Recognising the key role women play in food preparation and supply and the need to involve them in developing workable food safety solutions, the researchers developed a gender-sensitive participatory method. Their pro-poor risk-based approach to food safety contrasts with top-down hazard-based approaches that have failed to work in the past. The researchers have called their new approach for assessing and managing health risks associated with livestock ‘participatory risk analysis’.

ILRI economist and co-author, Tom Randolph, says ‘Studies that look for disease in informal markets will inevitably find it; the corollary is an enormous burden of sickness borne by poor consumers, as well as blocked access for poor farmers to emerging higher value outlets such as supermarkets.

‘Risk-based approaches to food safety need to be adapted to the context of informal markets. So we are focusing on the food producers – who are mostly women – and bringing communities and food safety implementers together to analyse local food safety problems and develop workable solutions.

‘We are convinced that integrating risk assessment with participatory methodologies and gender analysis is a promising solution to the problem of unsafe foods in informal markets.

‘And generating credible evidence is critical to better understanding and better managing food safety in developing countries’ concludes Randolph.

Earlier risk-based approach to raw milk management in Kenya

Food borne disease is often dismissed as a mild inconvenience. The symptoms, usually an upset stomach, vomiting and/or diahorrea, are short-lived and people recover quickly and fully. But foodborne illnesses are in fact very serious. Some can cause permanent irreversible damage and others can kill. Children, the elderly and sick are particularly vulnerable. Diahorrea, a common symptom of many foodborne illnesses, is a leading cause of death in children under five in developing countries. Safe food handling and storage practices reduce the risks of food poisoning, while cooking foods at high temperatures can kill bacteria that cause serious food related illnesses. Safer food benefits all consumers, particularly the poorest and most vulnerable.

Brucellosis is a zoonotic disease (transmitted from infected animals to people). It is commonly transmitted by consuming food harbouring brucella organisms, usually raw/unpasteurized milk or products derived from untreated milk including yoghurt and cheese. Women infected with brucellosis can also transfer the bacteria to their babies through breast milk. Symptoms of brucellosis include fever, headache, sweating, joint pain and fatigue. If left untreated, symptoms can last up to a year.

Earlier smallholder dairy research conducted by ILRI and partners showed that although some raw milk sold by smallscale traders in Kenya did contain brucella, the risk of brucellosis was negligible as it is common practice across Kenya to boil all milk before drinking it. Boiling milk achieves the same results as pasteurization – harmful bacteria commonly found in raw milk, such as brucella and E. coli, are destroyed and the health risk to consumers is low.

This is an example of how focusing on risk (likely harm to the consumer) comes up with a very different conclusion than focusing on hazard (presence of bacteria in milk. By taking cultural/consumer practices into account, ILRI and partners generated evidence about the ‘real’ risks to public health and helped smallscale traders to continue selling their raw milk. The researchers also helped small traders raise their quality and safety standards by providing them with training and support to improve their food hygiene practices (read the food hygiene requirements here) and achieve quality accreditation within the formal market.

If hazard-based food safety standards that look for the presence of pathogens had been applied, raw milk would have been considered a serious health risk. But the alternative pro-poor risk-based approach was a win-win for Kenyan traders dependent on raw milk for their income and poor Kenyan consumers dependent on raw milk as a cheap and nourishing food source.

Further information: http://www.smallholderdairy.org

Citation
D. Grace, T. Randolph, J. Olawoye, M. Dipelou and E. Kang’ethe (2008) Participatory risk assessment: a new approach for safer food in vulnerable African communities. Development in Practice. Vol. 18, No.4, 611-618
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09614520802181731

Further Information Contact:
Delia Grace, Veterinary epidemiologist, ILRI
Email: d.grace@cgiar.org
Telephone: +254 (20) 422 3460

Tom Randolph
Economist, ILRI
Email: t.randolph@cgiar.org
Telephone: +254 (20) 422 3067

Helping Asia’s dairy farmers take advantage of rising demand and prices for dairy products

Posted on October 22, 2008 by ILRIComms

FAO workshop and strategy say fair prices, appropriate policies and strategic investments and partnerships are key for the sector's development.

A report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in April 2008 concludes that policy decisions impinging on the smallholder dairy sector should be taken with a broad understanding of their direct and indirect implications on rural as well as urban populations.

The report indicates that the recent control of milk prices in several Asian countries could be counter-productive to supporting the dairy incomes of smallholders and rural development generally. With prices at record levels for both dairy outputs (milk) and inputs (feeds, energy costs), fixed and administered prices tend to hold back big as well as small dairy producers from responding quickly to the changing price signals.

Price controls particularly hurt dispersed smallholders, who often lack social networks to help them find and sell to milk collectors offering the highest prices. On the other hand, equitable and remunerative prices for farm-gate milk encourages smallholders to adopt improved and sustainable technologies and management systems that improve their milk quality as well as quantity.

The recent and rapid escalation of commodity prices is the perfect environment in which to test what policies are most conducive to the development of the agricultural sector. Low food prices over the past 20 years led to an underinvestment in agriculture, particularly in smallholder dairying, which, unlike rice and other staples of food security, has been a neglected and relatively unsupported area of research and development.

Fair pricing policies, says FAO, are the first step to this sector’s development.

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The sudden rise in dairy prices that took the market by surprise in late 2006 was due to the elimination by the European Union of subsidized dairy exports as well as to drought in many large dairy-product exporting countries and higher feed prices worldwide. Throughout 2007, prices for dairy products rose faster than those for any other agricultural commodity group, finally reaching a plateau in late 2007 and abating only in early 2008.
This recent increase in dairy prices potentially offers an opportunity for hundreds of millions of poor, and in many cases, landless, smallholder dairy producers to benefit from these structural, or permanent, shifts in the global demand and supply of dairy products.

This is particularly true for Asia, where growth in both milk production and consumption has been the strongest in the world; nearly 80% of the 238 million tonnes of milk produced in 2007 was supplied by farmers with 1 to 5 cows.

While developing countries in Asia and elsewhere consume only 40% of global milk production, these countries import nearly three-quarters of global shipments of dairy products, including 80% of milk powder exports from developed countries. With the world’s largest net trade milk deficit, Asia is projected to increase its milk production by 3% a year over the next decade, slower than the previous decade but still double annual global growth rates.

This is supported by expectations that, although dairy product prices have been easing in the first half of 2008, increased prices are here to stay. Commodity projections by both FAO and the Food and Agriculture Policy Research Institute indicate that milk prices over the next decade will remain 50% higher than historical averages.

Smallholder farmers have the capacity to respond quickly to higher milk prices because of their ample scope for rapid yield increases. Current average milk yields in developing countries are just one-fifth that in developed countries because most smallholder farmers feed their dairy animals well below their potential.

With enabling pricing policies and technical support to producers on improved feeding, on-farm management and reducing spoilage, milk yields in poor countries could increase dramatically to meet the rising global demand, bringing millions out of poverty in the process.

How policymakers in region have responded to higher commodity prices
To date, most of the policy responses in Asia to escalating food prices have focused on rice, maize, wheat and other food staples. Some countries, such as India in 2007, briefly limited dairy product exports to ensure domestic price stability. Many importing countries reduced import tariffs on both livestock products and feed inputs and many put in place price caps on milk and other dairy products.

Asian policy responses to escalating food prices

• China imposes price caps on meat, milk, eggs, grain and edible oils (Jan 2008)
• China subsidizes meat consumption for the poor (for 6 months)
• Thailand imposes price controls on dairy products, chicken, eggs, beef and pork.
• Pakistani cities set retail fluid milk prices below the cost of production.
• Thailand reduces the tariff rate for soybean meal from 4 to 0% to reduce the costs of feeding local animals.
• Indonesia eliminates import duties on soybeans (for 6 months).
• Indonesia subsidizes tempe and tofu producers.
• Korea cuts import duties on corn and soybeans.
• China reduces the tariff rate for soybeans from 3 to 1% for 3 months (Oct 2007–Mar 2008).
• Indonesia takes a series of measures to stabilize food prices.
• India abolishes the import duty on corn (Jan–Dec 2007)
• India bans the export of pulses (Jun 2006–Mar 2008).
• Vietnam reduces tariffs on meat, offal, eggs, milk products, vegetable oils and animal feeds by 30–50% and reduces the import tax rate for corn used for animal feed from 5 to 2%.

The different policy responses and the way they are implemented alter economic incentives for the different actors along the dairy marketing chain and have differential impacts on food security in urban and rural areas. Policy responses that seek to ensure food security and access by controlling markets, such as through setting ceiling prices, usually lower prices, preventing potential gains from being realized, and hurt rural livelihoods.

The dairy sector in most developed countries is highly supported through regulated prices and high tariffs to ensure stable and high incomes for dairy producers. This is not the case in developing countries, where dairy policies are less prevalent and price controls are often used to ensure low prices for urban consumers.

A recent FAO review on lessons learned in smallholder dairy development reveals that government interventions in the dairy sector—particularly price policies that create or remove incentives for producers to increase yields—strongly impact rural livelihoods and food security for better or worse, as well as, importantly, the investment climate for the sector.

A key question for policymakers is to what extent the international dairy prices are being transmitted into local economies. FAO’s investigation of price movements in a few countries in Asia identifies some of the factors conditioning the transmission of the prices. Domestic policies influence market signals while the costs of doing business determines the extent to which individual producers respond to those market signals.

The first determinants of how international prices translate into local prices are exchange rate movements and a country’s net trade position. While world dairy prices have increased substantially in recent years, these have been accompanied and partly caused by a substantial depreciation of the US dollar against many currencies.

The exchange rate factor means domestic prices don’t necessarily rise as much as international prices. The impacts of international prices on local prices are highest in countries with stable currencies, such as Indonesia and Bangladesh. In countries whose currencies have been appreciating, milk importers such as the Philippines have benefited from cheaper imports while milk exporters such as Thailand have suffered from reduced export earnings.

Prices of dairy products throughout Asia have increased over the past two years. From 2006 to 2008, farm gate prices of fluid milk rose from 10% (Malaysia) to 14% (Nepal) to 30% (Vietnam) to 69% (Mongolia). In the Philippines, which, after China, imports more dairy products than any other Asian nation, the government stopped all support for dairy activities two decades ago, deciding to import all its dairy requirements. While the government has accorded the sector more interest in recent years, its low tariffs (1–3%) on dairy imports, instituted to assure adequate supplies of milk products for its urban consumers, encouraged milk imports.

Despite these challenges to Philippino dairy producers, the smallholder sector, comprising some 96% of the dairy farming sector, has managed to compete favourably in the open market, due to its enterprise-focused approach to dairy development and the laissez-faire pricing policy, which allows markets to determine prices. The rise in international milk prices was transferred into the Philippino wholesale market for milk powder with only a slight delay (despite the peso’s appreciating 33% against the value of the US dollar, making imports less expensive). And farm gate prices, ranging from US$0.30–0.33 from 2001 to 2006 have risen to the current range of $0.40–0.49.

Sri Lanka has also kept tariffs low on imports of dairy products to keep milk, considered ‘essential’ for food security and nutrition, affordable. As a result, price trends in international markets are transmitted almost fully to the domestic market. With relatively stable exchange rates and imports making up 72% of domestic consumption, one could assume that high international prices would lead to higher prices for local suppliers.

However, pricing structures largely determined by a state-owned milk processing company mean the higher international prices translated into nearly 50% rises in packages of locally sold whole milk powder but only a 25% increase (US$0.20–0.25 per litre) in farm gate fluid milk prices in 2007.

Sri Lankan milk producers have thus not been given sufficient incentives to invest in their dairying despite the fact that the country’s total milk collection increased by 13% in 2004 due to higher prices being paid then for milk. Also constraining incentives to engage in the Sri Lankan dairy sector are high production costs that mean that a farmer needs to keep at least three cows and produce at least 15 litres a day to earn a reasonable income from dairy.

As Asia’s fifth largest producer, Pakistan accounts for nearly 13% of global production, most of which is sourced from the country’s 8.4 million dairying households owning an average of 1 to 10 cows and most of which is consumed within the country.

Dairy’s contribution to Pakistan domestic product surpasses all the major crops and the sector has grown by more than 3% annually over the past decade, mostly due to expanding numbers of dairy animals producing low yields.

Over 2007, prices for fluid milk rose from US$0.31 to %$0.37 per litre. The price setting, however, which in Pakistan is done at district level, doesn’t take into consideration the rising costs of feed and other imports.

In both Pakistan and Sri Lanka, these prices have risen about 8 to 10% per year. Some municipalities are setting price ceiling below the cost of production. So while official milk prices in Karachi are set at RS32 per litre, black market rates in peak season often reach RS42 per litre. In response, farmers reduce or stop making new investments in their dairying, particularly their purchase of buffalo calves, whose price has risen 30–40%, a fact that may spell shortages of milk and cows in future.

Strategically positioning Asia to benefit from growing opportunities:
The Asian Smallholder Dairy Development Strategy and Investment Plan
To facilitate a timely response to this new and big opportunity for the poor, FAO and the Animal Production and Health Commission for Asia and the Pacific (APHCA), with the financial support of Common Fund for Commodities, initiated development of a regional strategy for dairy development. They started by holding a workshop in Chiang Mai, Thailand, 26–29 February 2008, attended by over 50 key policymakers and senior executives of some of the largest dairy companies in Asia. Participants included regional experts from 18 Asian countries and from the Africa-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).

At a time of record-high international dairy prices, the workshop dairy experts agreed that Asia needs concerted regional collaboration to enable its tens of millions of small dairy producers to derive the full benefits from the dairy value chain through greater productivity, better milk quality and maximum market access.

To help unleash dairy’s potential to transform rural economies in Asia, workshop members and government and private-sector representatives pledged to:
• Strengthen the ability of smallholders, who currently account for 70% of regional milk production, to supply and market quality milk to the region;
• Actively participate in a regional dairy information and exchange network that will be a channel of best practices on smallholder dairy development;
• Support the development of national action plans that would build on the pillars of the regional strategy.

In response to the outcome of the workshop, FAO committed itself, under the umbrella of APHCA, to the immediate development of a knowledge networking system on small-scale dairy development, addressing such issues as production, marketing, and processing. The results of this workshop were further elaborated the following April into an Asian Smallholder Dairy Development Strategy and Investment Plan, which has as its objective: ‘a glass of good-quality, safe Asian milk per day for every Asian child and more efficient, productive and profitable dairy food chains providing dairy producers with higher earnings.’

In November 2008, ILRI’s Markets Theme director, Steve Staal, will participate in a follow-up workshop in Bangkok with about 30 other experts, including policymakers, researchers, private sector agents and global development thinkers on dairy development and chain analysis. This informal expert consultation aims to build a body of practical knowledge on enabling policies for development of smallholder dairy. It will feed into and support the broader objectives of FAO’s regional strategy for smallholder dairy development in Asia, which is to promote investment into Asia’s dairy sector.

FAO has been working in many countries in the region to help develop national training centers for small-scale dairy processing and genetic improvement of dairy cattle. Like FAO, ILRI strongly supports pro-poor dairy policy and development. ILRI has been working to enhance smallholder dairying in Africa and Asia since early 1990s through collaborative R&D projects with national partners. ILRI’s central interest is the traditional ‘raw’, or unpasteurized, milk and dairy markets of these regions, which are huge and booming. Traditional markets make up an extraordinary 98% of total milk sold in Tanzania, 90% in Uganda, and 86% in Kenya; in South Asia, these informal markets constitute 98% of milk sold in Pakistan, 76% in India and 40% in Sri Lanka. The dairy products traded in these informal markets are often liquid raw or soured milk and traditionally processed products such as the ubiquitous milk sweets of India.

ILRI’s collaborative smallholder dairy projects are looking for win-win options that enhance the welfare of small farmers and market agents while improving the nutritional status of poor households and enriching exhausted soils on smallholder mixed crop-and-livestock farms.
A smart way to meet this triple bottom line is to pay scrupulous attention to already vibrant local dairy markets—to what products local people are already selling and buying. As ILRI veterinary researcher Nick Hooten says:

‘What all of us tend to vastly underestimate is the huge and growing size and viability of local dairy markets in developing countries, with their traditional products designed for local preferences rather than Western appetites. These local markets should be our starting point for enlarging dairy pathways out of poverty.’

A collaboration path toward action
Embarking on such an ambitious initiative requires collaboration and cooperation between governments, institutions and other local and regional partners. FAO and ILRI have a long history of working together on smallholder dairy development and a regional umbrella supporting dairy development in Asia necessitates partnerships that focus on merging research results into development action in the field.

A recent ILRI/FAO publication, Dairy Development for the Resource Poor—A Comparison of Dairy Policies and Development in South Asia and East Africa—outlines an agenda for pro-poor dairy policy and development. The authors suggest that, generally speaking, dairy development policies that build on traditional production systems, with a particular focus on employment generation and food safety and quality, are likely to be pro-poor. Solid knowledge of policies and their impacts on the structure of the dairy sector throughout the region will provide the stage for future initiatives.

ILRI and FAO look forward to collaborating with interested partners in the region to further the goal of ensuring that every day Asian children have access to at least one glass of Asian milk.

Related Information:
Proceedings of an FAO/APHCA/CFC-FUNDED workshop on:
Developing an Asian Regional Strategy for Sustainable Smallholder Dairy Development

Strategy and Investment Plan for Smallholder Dairy Development in Asia

Asia Pacific Dairy Strategy Project information

APHCA Brief: Dairy prices, policies and potential opportunities for smallholders in Asia, April 2008, by Nancy Morgan, Livestock Policy Officer, FAO Regional Office in Bangkok, Asia-Pacific Dairy Strategy Project

ILRI’s presentation to the workshop, ‘Dairy development for the resource poor: Lessons for policy and planning strategies’, by Nick Hooten, 27 February 2008.

Further Information Contact:
Nancy Morgan,
Livestock Policy Officer, FAO Regional Office in Bangkok
Asia-Pacific Dairy Strategy Project
Email: Nancy.Morgan@fao.org

Steve Staal
Director of Enhancing Market Opportunities Theme
ILRI-Nairobi
Email: s.taal@cgiar.org

Evolution of Uganda’s dairy systems: Popular zero-grazing dairying does not suit all

Posted on October 17, 2008 by ILRIComms

What’s needed is to make better use of cow manure to fertilize the country’s impoverished soils.

Is Uganda outgrowing its popular zero-grazing dairy model? Reports from a recent research study suggest that Ugandan policymakers may want to revisit their policies supporting the country’s booming dairy sector to sustain increasing yields of smallholder mixed crop-and-dairy production over the long term.

Before the 1980s, milk production in Uganda occurred largely in two contrasting production systems. There were the large, mostly government-owned, commercial dairy farms located in the wetter parts of the country on which exotic and cross-bred dairy cattle were kept and grazed on natural pastures. Then there were the pastoralists, who kept large numbers of local cattle under traditional management systems in the drier eastern and northeastern parts of the country.

From the mid-1980s, development agencies in Uganda began introducing zero-grazing systems, in which high-yielding genetically improved cows (pure or cross-bred with local cattle) are kept in stalls and fed with fodder cut and carried to them daily. These more ‘intensive’ dairy systems were promoted among Ugandan farmers along with training on managing dairy breeds and growing fodder. This gave many smallholders an incentive to buy exotic dairy cows or to upgrade their indigenous cows by cross-breeding them with exotic stock. Some of Uganda’s small farmers adopted strict zero-grazing practices while others combined grazing paddocks with stall feeding, a hybrid dairy production system that came to be known as ‘semi-intensive’.

As a result, there has been a steady increase over the last two decades in the numbers of improved dairy cows in Uganda’s national herd with concomitant increases in national milk production yields, smallholder contributions to national milk production, dairy’s contribution to the national economy, and per capita milk consumption.

Ugandan dairy support
Sixteen years ago, in 1992, the government launched a ‘Milk Master Plan’ to improve (simultaneously) rural incomes, farm living standards, national self-sufficiency in milk production, and yields of surplus milk for export. With the liberation of the sub-sector in 1993, when the government’s monopoly on milk processing was broken, many medium and small-scale private milk processors emerged on the scene. To realize the objectives of its ‘Milk Master Plan’, Uganda in 1998 established a Dairy Development Authority.

With the rapid rise of dairying among smallholder farmers, people began to question whether intensification was the best option for Ugandan farmers and whether these mixed dairy-crop production systems could be sustained.

To respond to these concerns, an in-depth study funded by the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) was carried out between 2001 and 2005 by the Ugandan National Agriculture Research Organization (NARO), Makerere University, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences (DIAS).

The study, focusing on dairy economics and nutrient cycling, was carried out in three districts—Mbarara, in southwestern of Uganda; Masaka, in southern Uganda; and Jinja, in the southeast, which is much smaller than the other two districts but with the highest human population.

Results of the research study indicate that Uganda may be ‘outgrowing’ its successful, and ever popular, zero-grazing model. The results show that Uganda’s booming dairy farming is profitable regardless of the level of ‘intensification’ that farmers employ through use of feeds and other inputs. This finding suggests is that a high-input / highly intensified production system like Uganda’s popular and heavily policy-supported ‘zero grazing’ system is not necessarily the best option for all of the country’s small-scale crop-and-dairy farmers. Even the country’s most progressive dairy farmers, who have adopted zero-grazing en masse, may want to revisit their choice of production system to sustain their crop as well as dairy production over the long term.

Another finding of the study is that all of Uganda’s dairy farmers, whether intensive, semi-intensive or agro-pastoral, tend to under-use their animal manure as organic fertilizer for their crop fields. The study found the quality of the soils on Uganda’s mixed dairy-crop farms already below a level considered critical for crop production and continuing to drop. This deteriorating situation is fast eroding the long-term sustainability of these farming systems; if nothing is done, food insecurity and poverty in the country are likely to worsen. This is despite these farmers having adequate amounts of manure from their dairy cows to use as fertilizing soil amendments. It is likely that Uganda’s dairy farmers are under-using their livestock manure to fertilize their crop soils because they lack the labour needed to save, transport and apply the manure.

RESEARCH RECOMMENDATION:• This study revealed how surprisingly little research can yet tell us about the advantages and disadvantages of African farmers applying livestock manure as fertilizer on their mixed-production farms. We still lack, for example, sufficient comparative data on its effects on small-farm economics, nutrient cycling, practicability, and labour trade-offs.

• We don’t yet know enough about these matters to recommend best-practice manure management and application methods for Uganda’s many small dairy producers. We ought to. We need to research manure management in the context of Africa’s complex small farming systems so that we can offer the continent’s farmers recommendations validated by research.

Download the Research Report: http://hdl.handle.net/10568/257

Download the Research Brief: http://hdl.handle.net/10568/3808

Partners:

Ugandan National Agriculture Oragnization (NARO)
Makerere University
Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences (DIAS)

Further Information Contact:
Isabelle Baltenweck
Scientist
International Livestock Research Institute
Nairobi, Kenya
Email: i.baltenweck@cgiar.org
Telephone: +254 (20) 422 3000

Sarah Mubiru
National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO)
Kampala, Uganda
Email: smubiru@naro-ug.org

Indian Council of Agricultural Research awards dairy project

Posted on October 10, 2008 by ILRIComms

'Team research for the Biennium 2005-6'

On 16 July 2008, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) in New Delhi awarded its ‘Team Research for the Biennium (2005–6)’ to Abraham K Joseph (left) and his colleagues at ‘Capitalisation of Livestock Programme Experiences India’. CALPI is a program of Intercooperation, a Swiss development organization funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.

The award was presented by the Hon. Union Minister for Agriculture, Mr Sharad Pawar (who is also the president of ICAR) and the Hon. Minister of State for Agriculture, Shri Kanti Lal Bhuria. It was bestowed on CALPI’s ‘Action Research to Improve the Traditional Milk Sector’.

ICAR’s ‘National Award for Outstanding Interdisciplinary Team Research in Agriculture and Allied Sciences for the Biennium 2005–6’ was bestowed on Intercooperation / CALPI for the significant contribution it has made to understanding the structure, functioning and dynamics of India’s traditional dairy value chain and identifying and implementing critically important interventions to help improve it.

The ministers said that this project helped dairy producers, consumers and market intermediaries alike to assimilate and adopt innovative ideas on how to organize producer groups and vendor associations. CALPI’s action research demonstrated that, given the right recognition and support in the form of technology, infrastructure, management and capacity building, India’s traditional dairy enterprises are viable, are operating within the nation’s food laws, and are contributing immensely to socially inclusive and regionally balanced economic growth.

Capitalisation of Livestock Programme Experiences India (CALPI)

The overall goal of CALPI is to capitalize on experiences, competence, credibility, reputation and demand to influence conditions in the livestock sector so that these address the top priorities and challenges of rural Indian livelihoods.

CALPI works in livestock policy development, livestock service delivery systems, veterinary and animal husbandry education, livestock-environment interactions, knowledge networks and research partnerships, livestock products marketing, and human and institutional development.

The programme supports projects and partners at macro-, meso- and, to a lesser extent, micro-levels largely through action research, networking, pilot activities, workshops and advocacy. The programme is implemented through Intercooperation.

See CALPI fact sheet: http://www.intercooperation.org.in/km/pdf/calpi/CALPI%20Fact%20sheet.pdf

This winning project to improve the traditional milk sector, one of 17 projects CALPI implements and supports, was conducted in the Khammam and Vijayawada districts of Andhra Pradesh, India. Although India’s vast traditional milk sector comprises an estimated 46 million dairy producing households and 111 million dairy consuming households, this sector remains one of the country’s least studied.

ILRI’s Regional Representative for Asia, Iain Wright (left)
with the CALPI team, Shefali Misra, A K Joseph and V Padmakumar.

This action research was implemented by a group of organizations, including Catalyst Management Services and the National Dairy Research Institute, in Bangalore; two NGOs, SECURE and ACTIVE, located at Khammam; and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), based in Nairobi. The research was steered by a multi-stakeholder Research Reference Group made up of representatives of each of these partners, including ILRI, and chaired by the Dairy Development Commissioner of Andhra Pradesh State.

This project has jointly published several publications with ILRI. These will be further used in a new project—‘Knowledge to Action: Enhancing Traditional Dairy Value Chains’—launched by ILRI and local partners in Guwahati, the capitol of India’s northeastern Assam Province, on 29 September 2008. This new project will work with Assam’s traditional milk sector to improve its marketing efficiencies, building on ILRI’s collaborative smallholder dairy work in East Africa as well as other parts of India. The Assam dairy project is funded by the UK Department for International Development through their ‘Research-into-Use Programme’.

As livestock professionals grapple with new challenges on account of rapid rises in the consumption and production of dairy and meat products in the South; the rapid spread of livestock diseases, some of them transmissible to people; and the anticipated damage climate change will cause South Asia’s agriculture, CALPI and ILRI are jointly organizing a South Asia knowledge-sharing workshop in Delhi 13–15 October 2008 on ‘Livestock and Development in a Changing Context’. The aim of the workshop is to understand the knowledge and information needs of those with a stake in livestock production where it interfaces livelihoods and environments of the poor. The 40-odd participants of the workshop will also identify ways to share the large body of applied knowledge that could be useful to livestock professionals in the region.

Traditional milk market (CALPI)

ILRI Top Story: 22 September 2008
When policies support-rather than harass-the informal markets of poor countries

ILRI Top Story: 06 June 2008
Pig marketing opportunities in Assam and Nagaland

Further Information Contact:
Iain Wright
Regional Representative,
ILRI, South Asia
Email: i.wright@cgiar.org
Telephone: +91 (11) 2560 3653

Collective action on food crisis

Posted on October 6, 2008 by ILRIComms

“Food Needs to Move!” Especially across national borders.

“The levers to solve this problem are in our own hands.”—Joseph Karugia

New research showing how the global food price crisis is playing out in 17 countries of eastern and central Africa was presented at a roundtable discussion in Nairobi 22 July 2008.

The research results show that the regional food situation differs significantly from the global one, largely because of this region’s exceptional diversity. That regional diversity provides these countries with opportunities to turn the volatile global and local food situations to their advantage.

By integrating markets and simplifying trade within the region, policymakers can efficiently link areas with food deficits to areas with food surpluses. This integration will help the region’s small farmers get better prices for their crops and livestock while also helping the region’s urban consumers get reliable year-round access to staple food items.

The July Roundtable on the Global Food Crisis was organized by the Kenya country offices of the World Bank and World Food Program and the Nairobi-headquartered International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). Fifty key decision-makers in agricultural and rural development met on ILRI’s campus to discuss interventions that governments, development agencies, research organizations and nongovernmental organizations could make to help poor people cope with the rising prices of staple foods.

Joseph Karugia, a Kenyan agricultural economist, provided an overview of the regional food situation. Karugia coordinates a Regional Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System for Eastern and Central Africa (ReSAKSS-ECA). His review was based on a study led by the region’s leading agricultural research group, the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA). Under pressure by policymakers needing to take action to address the food price crisis, a team of 26 researchers within ASARECA and several centres supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) that work in this region, including ILRI, with study activities coordinated by ReSAKSS-ECA, conceived and executed the study together and with speed.

“Our regional food prices have generally risen much slower than global ones,” Karugia said. Even the countries within the region are being affected differently by the global food prices, largely because of their different “food baskets”. Kenya’s main staple is maize, but in Uganda it’s plantain, in Ethiopia it’s teff and in Rwanda it’s beans. Those countries that deal in non-traded commodities are buffered from the rising prices of globally traded staples. “Rice and wheat,” Karugia said, “two hugely important staples globally, are relatively trivial in this region. Moreover, most of the region’s maize needs are met outside the global markets because most people in the region obtain their maize in locally, in informal as well as formal markets.”

One result is that while the food price index (FPI) of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which captures trends in major food commodities, rose by 56% between March 2007 and March 2008, the FPI increases in this region were all below 40% and in most cases significantly lower. The FPI increased by 39% in Ethiopia, 20% in Burundi and Kenya, and just 11% in Tanzania. In several other countries in the region, including Madagascar, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda and Zambia, the increase was less than 10%.

It’s not only the staples of these neighbouring countries that differ. Their climate and rainfall patterns differ, and consequently their planting and harvest times differ, too.

These within-region variations give policymakers a powerful lever for transforming a global food crisis into a regional opportunity for farm producers and urban consumers alike.

“The spatial and temporal distribution of production and staggered harvesting
in the countries of eastern and southern Africa offer large opportunities for trade.”

By integrating the region’s food markets and simplifying its food trade regulations, Karugia said, the region could link up food-deficit to food-surplus areas and thus provide its citizens with staples in an given season. A truly integrated regional market would provide farmers with remunerative prices and alternative reliable markets for their produce while also providing urban consumers and rural net buyers of food with a variety of reasonably priced food staples throughout the year.

Most of the trade in food in this region is informal. It is wasteful not because it is informal but rather because of the many obstacles the informal traders have to face. Karugia explains: “At the border between Kenya and Uganda, trucks laden with sacks of grain and other food staples are unloaded, reloaded onto bicycles, bicycled across the border to be reloaded onto trucks on the other side. This is not an efficient way to move food!”

It would be a shame, Karugia said, quoting the economist Paul Romer, for the eastern and southern Africa region “to waste a good crisis”. “This global food price crisis provides the 19 countries of eastern and southern Africa with a golden opportunity to promote agricultural-led development through increased domestic production, regional trade and integration.”

The ASARECA research presented at this roundtable discussion was a demonstration of this new networked science. Diverse scientists from ReSAKSS-ECA, ASARECA and the CGIAR worked together for months amassing data from country and regional organizations and consulting with key experts and partners within governments, policy think tanks, research institutions, emergency relief agencies and the private sector. Although their individual perspectives on, and interpretations of, the data they collected vary considerably, the research group reached consensus on several points.

• The poor in this region are spending 40 to 70% of their income on buying food.
• The poor are being hit hardest by the rise in food prices, especially the rural net buyers of food.
• Contrary to popular belief, most of the farming households in the rural areas are net buyers rather than net producers of food if price rather than volume of food is considered. Poverty forces them to sell their grain and other crops at harvest time, when prices are at their lowest, and to buy grain again, several months later, when the households run out of the staple, often at two to three times the price at which they sold their grain.
• Prices of agricultural inputs are increasing across the 17 countries of the region. (The price of fertilizer rose 200% in Kenya in the last year.)
• Yields of staple food crops are stagnating or decreasing in 17 of the 19 countries of Eastern and Central Africa (only Egypt and Mauritius are increasing their yields) because farming is moving onto increasingly marginal agricultural lands, causing yield aggregates to fall.

One other salient fact leaped out of the data—the region cannot continue to spend less than 10% (and in some cases as low as 2%) of its national budgets in a sector that provides 25% of the region’s gross domestic product, 75% of its citizen’s livelihoods, and food for 100% of its people. ‘We have neglected our agriculture, our farmers and our food markets for decades,” says Karugia. “This is the result.”

Karugia and his many colleagues in this multi-institutional, multi-disciplinary, and multi-commodity project asked themselves one central question: What levers can we pull to take advantage of the higher food prices? The two conventional answers—increase farm production and control consumer demand—were deemed by the group to be too slow to be useful. This regional group of scientists concluded that a regional strategy for exploiting the food price hikes offered the best opportunities for the most numbers of people: “Exploit the regional diversity by facilitating regional trade”.

Priority actions for such a regional strategy would include the following:
• Markets: Remove export bans, eliminate non-trade barriers, simplify trade regulations and upgrade infrastructure along the region’s main trade corridors.
• Farmers: Reduce the high cost of fertilizer and other agricultural inputs and facilitate their trade, widen use of best-bet agricultural technologies, pilot innovative risk-management strategies such as index-based insurance schemes.
• Institutions: Strengthen market information and intelligence as well as frameworks for preparedness, response and learning.

Addressing these issues in these ways, with evidence-based policy options, is thus feasible, say the study team, and should lead to lowering the prices of food staples while also raising farm productivity and agricultural livelihoods.

In summing up the day’s roundtable discussion, host Carlos Seré, who is ILRI’s director general, said that it’s not only food we should be moving within the region but also the agricultural technologies that allow greater and more sustainable food production. The current food price crisis also has that silver lining: “When you have high food prices, you can move those technologies for improved food production. And you can get attention for neglected alternative crops, such as cassava chips for livestock feed. Which become viable as the price of grain staples rise.”

“This is something happening now,” Seré said. “We need smart interventions that target the region’s poor consumers and farmers alike. We need to get fertilizers into the region’s high potential farming areas. The key thing is to work with markets—to arbitrage across countries and across the region. We must reduce trade barriers within the region, which will greatly improve the efficiency of its markets.”

“We must also think through new crop portfolios for this region,” he continued. “How, for example, could we continue to support maize production in Kenya without penalizing those farmers pursuing a more diversified system that includes sorghum or millet?”

Seré concluded: “Climate and other fast-evolving changes affecting developing-country food production will make our problems worse in future. Finding the institutional frameworks for addressing these problems in collective action is our challenge.”

Welcome address by ILRI director general Carlos Seré

In welcoming participants to the roundtable forum, ILRI director general Carlos Seré said: “Global analysis of the food situation is relatively simple. We need to bring the discussion and analysis down to regional levels to increase the specificity, the granularity, of our information.” . . . Read more
Read profile of Carlos Seré

Interview with Ravi Prabhu, a member of the study team and coordinator of a CGIAR initiative called Collective Action for Eastern and Southern Africa

Let’s take a look at what we heard today from Joseph Karugia and his ASARECA, ReSAKSS-ECG and CGIAR team.

We heard that have opportunities to exploit regional food heterogeneity, capacities and systems that we are not doing a good job of exploiting . . . Read more

The latest version of the ASARECA Food Crisis Report is available: http://www.asareca.org/resources/reports/resp2food_pr_main.pdf

Further Information Contact:

Joseph Karugia
Coordinater, ReSAKSS-ECA
International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)
Nairobi, KENYA
Email: j.karugia@cgiar.org
Telephone: +254 (20) 422 3016

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