Conversion of pastures to croplands is big climate change threat

Posted on July 22, 2008 by ILRIComms

New study results are warning that the conversion of pasturelands to croplands will be the major contributor to global warming in East Africa.

Climate change is a real and current threat to households and communities already struggling to survive in east Africa. Global climate modelling results indicate that the region will experience wetter and warmer conditions as well as decreases in agricultural productivity. However, results just released by the Climate Land Interaction Project (CLIP) forecast that there will be a high degree of variability within the region with some areas becoming wetter and others drier. This research provides evidence of the complex connection between regional changes in climate and changes in land cover and land use. The results forecast the conversion of vast amounts of land from grasslands to croplands over the next 40 years, with serious consequences for the environment.

Climate Land Interaction Project (CLIP)
CLIP is a joint research project of Michigan State University (MSU) and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), exploring important linkages between land use/cover changes and climatic changes in east Africa.

CLIP researchers, together with the Kenyan Ministry of Environment and Mineral Resources, organised a workshop to present CLIP modelling results to key decision-makers in Kenya. The workshop, held in Nairobi, highlighted the policy and technical implications and options for climate change adaptations in Kenya.

CLIP researcher and professor at MSU, Jeffrey Andresen, warns that the erosion of east African grazing lands is a major threat facing Kenya and other east African countries. ‘Results of running these models indicate that the greatest amount of contribution to global warming in the east Africa region is not going to be motor vehicles or methane emissions from livestock or conversions of forests to pastures but rather conversion of pasturelands to croplands’ says Andresen.

Projected climate and land use changes in northern Kenya
Based on climate change scenarios (CLIP analysis and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forecasts) northern Kenya will experience significant changes in rainfall and temperatures with some places becoming wetter and others drier. These changes will have dramatic impacts on ground cover and vegetation, especially the distribution and composition of grass species that form pastures for livestock and on which many people depend for their livelihoods.

Simulation models predict that areas in the remote northeast around Wajir, for example, will have greater vegetation cover and become much bushier than at present. Grazing lands are already scarce and the increasing encroachment of bush into grazing areas will create further problems for livestock keepers.

The quantity and quality of water will also be affected by the forecast changes in rainfall patterns and temperature regimes. These changes will not only affect water availability for humans and livestock but also accelerate the rate of vegetation change in different and opposite ways for different places. The ratio of tall to short grass species and closed to open vegetation, for example, depend partially on soil moisture content. It is likely that the anticipated climatic changes will greatly alter the grass ratios and these changes will then exert adverse effects on feed resources for livestock and significantly modify herd composition. In addition, traditional land management interventions, such as the use of fires and overgrazing may increase the scale, intensity and speed of these impacts.

CLIP researcher and ILRI scientist, Joseph Mworia Maitima concludes ‘Many millions of Kenyans already face severe poverty and constraints in pursuing a livelihood. But, with these projected increasing environmental stresses, they are going to become even more vulnerable.

‘It’s crucial that we now start talking about the technical and policy

Download CLIP brief

CLIP Brief: Policy implications of land climate interactions, June 2008

Related information:

Severe weather coming: Experts (Daily Nation, 13 August 2008)

Kenya: Severe weather coming – Experts (All Africa, 13 August 2008)

Contacts:

Joseph M. Maitima
Scientist/Ecologist
International Livestock Research Institute
Nairobi, Kenya
Email: j.maitima@cgiar.org

Pig marketing opportunities in Assam and Nagaland

Posted on July 16, 2008 by ILRIComms

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With soaring food prices, indigenous peoples in India are going back to raising small local black pigs. With knowledge-based support, they could tap into new market opportunities and double their incomes.

Pig marketing opportunities in Assam and Nagaland

This is Nagaland, one of India’s most insecure and poorest states. It is in the country’s mountainous northeast corner.

Remarkably, even remote villages here are affected by the rising global prices of milk, meat and cereals.

Most Naga ethnic groups have always kept pigs. Pork remains their preferred meat. Now, today’s skyrocketing grain prices mean the small black pigs these tribal peoples keep, which are adapted to local feed resources, have suddenly become more attractive than big white imported pigs, which have to be fed on expensive grain.

India: Poverty Statistics

India: Over 300 million people, 27.5% of the population live below the poverty line.

Northeast India is the easternmost region consisting of the Seven Sister States. It is home to 38 million people. The region is linguistically and culturally very distinct from the other states of India and officially recognized as a special category of States.

Nagaland is home to 1.99 million people. 19% of the population or 399,000 people live below the poverty line of which 387,000 live in rural areas.

Assam is home to 26.6 million people. 19.7% of the population or 557,700 people live below the poverty line, 545,000 of them in rural areas.

Poverty statistics source: Government of India Planning Commission (2007) Poverty estimates 2004-05.

Pig income for livelihoods and education

‘Apart from keeping pigs and farming, women like us don’t have any other ways to make money.

A window of opportunity for small pig farmers

Pig farmers in Nagaland and Assam now have a window of opportunity to step up their pig production and sell their native animals across the two states. But as markets for pigs are getting larger, so is the market chain, making the business of supplying disease free, safe meat increasingly hard for small producers. On top of that, there are no functioning breeding schemes or feed systems that would allow farmers to intensify. For entrepreneurs looking to collaborate, they might consider choosing to create general partnership alabama to pool resources and share responsibilities in a business venture.

This lack of quality knowledge is stopping expansion in a rapidly changing industry that could benefit many of the most vulnerable members of society, such as women and children. Without this critical knowledge-based support the opportunity for millions of the world’s poor to climb out of poverty through enhanced pig farming and marketing will be lost.

A local solution for rising prices

Development agencies have tried for decades to raise the very low household incomes in Assam and Nagaland. But even though pig keeping is central to the livelihoods of the poor and especially poor women, pig production has seldom been viewed as a development tool for the region.
This is peculiar because until recently local demand for pork was so great that it was profitable for local business people to import large numbers of commercial white pigs from producers in India’s grain states further west. Animals were being transported 2000-3000 kilometres, at a cost of USD40 each.

But grain-based feeds and transport have both recently shot up in price, adding even more to the cost. People in Assam and Nagaland are suddenly finding the imported white pigs far too expensive. A new market is growing fast for the local black and cross-bred pigs. Because these native animals can be fed mostly on low-cost feed crops and crop wastes, they are an ideal solution to fill the new pork and piglet supply gap.

Knowledge-based support needed to tap into fast changing markets

However because markets are changing so fast smallholder farmers can no longer make it alone. They lack access to information and resources, linkages to health and breeding services, business support, and feeding systems. All these are vital if they are to expand while also meeting increasingly demanding new health and safety standards. This short-term opportunity is ready-made for success. The pigs are there, the demand is there, and farmers ambitious to grow their pig enterprises are also there.

With relevant knowledge and training, both of which ILRI with its national partners are ready to provide, most tribal households in these states could boost their herd sizes and double their incomes sustainably and in a cost-effective way over the next 5–10 years.

Without support, millions of people will increasingly suffer poverty, conflicts, and the loss of dignity that goes with forced migration to cities. However, with help, they can maintain the traditional livelihoods that sustain communities and generate prosperity.

ILRI’s representative for Asia, Iain Wright, says ‘We are working with national partners to gain support for helping poor people seize this big pig marketing opportunity in Nagaland, Assam and other northeast states.

‘We have recently started a project with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research and the School of Agricultural Science and Rural Development, Nagaland University, to implement a programe of research to improve the production and marketing of pigs in selected villages in Mon District, Nagaland. We’re also looking at working on similar projects with national partners in other notheastern states’, says Wright.

Background information:
The Nagaland pig production and marketing project is funded by the National Agricultural Innovation Project with a contribution from the International Fund for Agricultural Development and aims to develop sustainable solutions to livelihood improvement in one of the poorest districts in India.

Investigating new livelihood options for pastoralists

Posted on July 10, 2008 by ILRIComms

Research is identifying new development options that will help pastoral peoples and lands of the South adapt to big and fast changes.

Over 180 million people in the developing world, especially in dry areas, depend solely on livestock and pastoral systems for their livelihoods. Grassland-based pastoral and agro-pastoral systems are undergoing unprecedented changes that are bringing new opportunities as well as problems. Research is helping to identify new development options for pastoralists that reduce risks and enhance their ability to adapt to changing climates, markets and circumstances.

Pastoral lands are crucial for the production of ecosystem goods and services, for tourism and for mitigating climate change. Pastoral systems can no longer be viewed as livestock enterprises, but as multiple-use systems that have important consequences for the environment and more diversified livelihood strategies.

Opportunities and challenges in tropical rangelands
A new paper, written by scientists at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), describes the major drivers and trends of dryland tropical pastoral and agro-pastoral systems and the challenges they present for development agendas. The paper, entitled Livestock production and poverty alleviation – challenges and opportunities in arid and semi-arid tropical rangeland based systems, gives examples of how research is providing new development options that should make drylands more attractive for public and private investment. The authors urge for a more holistic research agenda that will take into account the socio-economic and ecological synergies and trade-offs inherent in pastoral people taking up new livelihood opportunities.

ILRI’s director general and lead author of the paper, Carlos Seré, presented the paper at a joint meeting of the International Grasslands and Rangelands Congresses, held 29 June–5 July 2008, in Hohhot, in China’s Inner Mongolia.

Seré says: ‘Perceptions about arid pastoral regions are changing rapidly as we recognize the many functions these ecosystems provide and the new development options available.

‘Pastoralism can no longer be seen as a “tragedy” for common grazing areas but rather as a production system with great potential to sustain complex livelihood strategies.

‘Balancing the needs for increased productivity, environmental protection and improved livelihoods in these fragile drylands will help us address the needs of some of the world’s most vulnerable peoples’.

New development options for pastoral peoples and lands
Much conventional research has focused on increasing the productivity of drylands, for example, by improving livestock and feed management. However, big and fast changes mean that there is a need for an expanded, more integrated, research agenda that investigates what options will work best in given areas and circumstances and how pastoral peoples and lands will benefit.

The new development options need to ease the transitions in pastoral livelihoods that will be necessary in the coming decades and focus on ways to mitigate pastoral risk and encourage adoption of new livelihoods. Poor households may have opportunities to engage in livelihood strategies outside traditional livestock production, such as payments for ecosystem goods and services such as water purification and carbon sequestration. Others may have opportunities to combine livestock keeping with new or increased incomes generated through expanded eco- and wildlife tourism, biofuel production and niche markets for speciality livestock products.

Download Livestock production and poverty alleviation paper and presentation

Livestock production and poverty alleviation, C. Seré et al. June 2008

Reference
C. Seré, A. Ayantunde, A. Duncan, A. Freeman, M. Herrero, S. Tarawali and I. Wright (2008). Livestock production and poverty alleviation – challenges and opportunities in arid and semi-arid tropical rangeland based systems. International Livestock Research Institute, P.O. Box 30709, Nairobi, Kenya.

Impacts from ILRI and partner pastoral research
• Studies in Africa, combining climate change predictions and proxy indicators of vulnerability, identified areas on the continent most vulnerable to climate change.

• Studies in Lesotho, Malawi and Zambia identified economic shocks, drought, livestock losses due to animal diseases, and declining livestock service delivery as major sources of pastoral vulnerability. The study noted marked differences in the ownership of productive assets, livelihood strategies and vulnerability between men and women. This meant that women and female-headed households are still more vulnerable than the general population—and this in spite of the fact that young men are increasingly emigrating from pastoral to urban areas, leaving ever larger numbers of women as heads of pastoral households.

• A participatory pastoral project in East Africa created knowledge and relationships that enabled poor Maasai agro-pastoral communities to influence district and national land-use policies affecting their livelihoods and wildlife-rich landscapes. Locals worked with researchers as community facilitators and played a key role in GIS mapping, representing the interests of their communities to local and national policymakers and delivering the maps and other knowledge products that are helping to protect their wildlife and secure additional income from wildlife tourism.

• Studies in West Africa show that typically it is traders that dictate livestock prices because livestock producers and sellers lack accurate and up-to-date price information. Producers thus have little incentive to increase their livestock production even though a wide range of cross-regional links exist that could greatly increase their market opportunities. This research showed that West Africa’s pastoralists could increase their incomes by entering the growing regional livestock markets if provided with credit for value-added processing, reduced transportation and handling costs, livestock market information systems, and harmonized regional livestock trade policies.

• Other studies have identified that new market opportunities for pastoralists are opening due to increasing demands from affluent members of society. Growing niche markets for certain locally preferred breeds of animals (Sudan desert sheep) or animal products (El Chaco beef), for example, are starting to be exploited in pastoral regions.

Contacts:
Carlos Seré
Director General, ILRI
Email: c.sere@cgiar.org
Telephone: +254 (20) 422 3201/2

Rising milk and meat prices bring threats and opportunities

Posted on May 22, 2008 by ILRIComms

More equitable trade policies and substantial investments in agricultural research are urgently needed to help poor farmers seize new market opportunities.

Soaring food prices are dominating headlines. Rising prices represent threats for poor consumers as well as opportunities for poor milk and meat producers. The politics of food have grown complicated with almost as much speed as the rise in food prices. For many people who are poor, this has become an immediate crisis in their lives. It has suddenly become much more difficult for them to secure sufficient nutritious food.

ILRI’s director-general, Carlos Sere, says that governments should start focusing on the livestock sector to combat famine. He warned that the prices of livestock products will skyrocket if the prevailing conditions do not change.

But for some 800 million smallholder livestock farmers, this crisis could turn into an opportunity. Given the right support, they could earn more income from milk and meat, giving them more hope for the future.

The surge in prices of milk and meat, as well as rice, wheat and other cereal grains, is a global problem that will have the greatest impact on the world’s poor. Increasing milk and meat consumption are contributing to the spike in milk and meat prices. More people in the developing world are consuming larger quantities of animal source foods, while consumption in industrial countries is flattening out. The main driver in the increase in milk and meat prices has been the surge in demand for the products in China and India, where,fortunately, hundreds of millions of people are improving their diets as well as their incomes.

Many other factors are also contributing to the high prices. Rising global oil prices have had a negative effect on agricultural production, transportation and fertilizer costs; diversion of food grains and agricultural land to biofuels means more grain and land is being used for energy production and so less is available for food and recent bad weather, such as in Australia and New Zealand where severe droughts have hampered agricultural production.

Demand soars in Asia’s rapidly emerging economies

Over the last decade, consumption of livestock products in the emerging economies of China and India has grown dramatically. As incomes of the poor rise from USD2 a day to USD10 a day, people typically switch from a predominantly starchy diet to a more varied diet that includes more vegetables, milk, meat and eggs.

In 1985, Chinese consumers ate an average of 20 kilograms (44 pounds) of meat, equivalent to half a pound per person per fortnight. This has increased 40 per cent and today they eat an average of 50 kilograms (110 pounds) per year. This is equivalent to half a pound per week. However, many poor people are too poor to eat meat – or eat only tiny amounts. In contrast, people in the US are consuming over half a pound of meat per person every day. US per capita red meat and poultry consumption increased 8 per cent between 1980 and 2005, and now stands at 187.5 pounds per person.

Poor consumers will be hardest hit by rising prices

Higher meat and milk prices will have the greatest effect on world’s poorest 2 billion people, who live on less than USD2 a day. For most of the 800 million people who live on even less – USD1 a day – these price increases mean they will go hungry more often and their diets will not be as nutritious. Threats and opportunities exist and this depends on whether the poor are net consumers of these foodstuffs or net producers, interestingly more rural farmers are net consumers.

In some areas, the price of milk has doubled. This is bad news for consumers in high milk consuming countries such as Kenya and India. For example, the price of milk in northern India has risen from 17 to 24 rupees in last 2 years, an increase of 50 per cent. Meat prices, while not rising quite as dramatically, are expected to keep increasing in large part because the corresponding price jumps of cereal grains used to feed livestock raised in industrial systems.

The world’s growing population will keep up the pressure on demand. Some estimate that by 2030, global food demands will double from current consumption. This does not mean that the result is all bad news for the poor. Many poor farmers with a surplus to sell could benefit from rising prices. For these farmers and their families, the rising prices of milk and meat offer new opportunities to climb out of poverty as they produce and sell more livestock and livestock products. India is a great example. With its sprawling crowded cities and population of over one billion, tens of millions of people could use dairy products to get themselves and their families out of poverty. Recent food price rises are also encouraging poor farmers in northeast India to expand their production of small local pigs. The soaring price of grains along with higher transportation costs is reducing the supply of exotic pigs from northeastern Indian states and stimulating demand for local black pigs that do not need costly feeds and can thrive on locally produced fodder and kitchen wastes. With the right support and infrastructure, poor farmers could seize the new market opportunities and climb out of poverty.

Food grains for people or for livestock?

With soaring demands for milk and meat comes more livestock and this brings more stress on the environment. ILRI’s long-term research aims for sustainable animal agriculture that helps poor farmers intensify their production systems while conserving their land, water and other natural resources. Livestock farming in poor countries is radically different from the industrial, grain-fed, feedlot form of livestock production practiced throughout the West. In industrial systems, it takes 8 kilos of grain to produce 1 kilo of meat. The ruminant livestock of poor countries do not compete with people for their feed, as they eat mainly grass, forages and crop wastes.

Food grains for people or for biofuels?

Another complicating factor in efforts to increase food production is the diversion of grains and oilseeds to produce ethanol and biodiesel. The World Development Report 2008 estimates that filling up a typical 4×4 SUV with ethanol uses enough maize to feed a person for a year. The report also found that biofuels would raise the prices of grain globally. This will lead to higher rates of malnutrition among the poor in the world’s least developed countries. Governments are reassessing their biofuels policies as there is growing concern about grain and oil-based crops, such as maize, soybean and oil palm, being used for producing biofuels while millions of poor people simply do not have enough food to eat. Not all biofuels are bad for food production and support is gathering for biofuels produced from non-consumable products such as wastes from sugarcane and sweet sorghum residues.

Recommendations

There are no quick fixes for today’s soaring food prices and their negative impacts on poverty levels and food security and availability. An international commitment to fairer and more equitable trade, together with substantial investments in agricultural research and development, are urgently needed to cope with current and future demands.

Fairer and more equitable trade
A major concern is that the spike in commodity prices could pit the globe’s poorer South against the relatively wealthy North, elevating demands from the South for reform of rich nations’ farm and environmental policies. It could also pit neighboring countries against each other. Trade barriers, production subsidies, import subsidies and export bans will all hit the poor the hardest.

ILRI recommends:

Develop smart subsidies for the most vulnerable groups. Put more funds into the hands of the poorest people to buy the food they need instead of resorting to protectionist trade barriers to keep prices low.

2. Cut subsidies to European and US farmers and open rich markets to poor suppliers.

3. Get higher prices into the hands of small-scale livestock producers to encourage them to produce more.

Increasing investments in agricultural development and growth
Food productivity increases are critical for meeting rising food demands. Without the necessary increases in productivity, the global food crisis will worsen, prices will continue to rise and it will be even more difficult for poor people to access nutritious food. It is critical that governments substantially increase their investments in agricultural research.

ILRI recommends:
1. Invest in rural market transport and infrastructure to ensure food supply from rural producers, especially of perishable, high value products, including livestock products.

2. Use options identified by scientific research to refine the integration of crops and livestock so as to raise smallholder productivity.

3. Exploit the fact that the new prices now make many livestock technologies developed over the last 30 years financially feasible.

Women and livestock: Global challenge dialogue

Posted on March 7, 2008 by ILRIComms

Poverty has a woman’s face. ILRI is facilitating a global e-consultation to fight poverty through women and livestock.

Over the coming months ILRI will be facilitating a Global Challenge Dialogue on Women and Livestock. This e-consultation will involve knowledgeable and influential thinkers and doers from around the world. They will be invited to take up the challenge of fighting poverty through women and livestock; to create new ways to empower women livestock keepers to further develop themselves, their families, their communities and their nations.

The Challenge Dialogue is about deepening understanding of the challenge, seeking ideas, and devising a strategy and action plan that will realize tangible impacts.

At the end of six months participants will have developed:
• A first assessment of the global value of livestock-keeping by women.
• A list of major opportunities in enhancing women’s contribution to livestock development.
• A roadmap showing how joint actions will lead to real improvements to poor women’s lives, communities and environments.
• Proposals for activities that help poor women get even more benefits from livestock.

Why are livestock so important to women?

Poverty has a woman’s face. Women do two thirds of the world’s work, and produce half the world’s food, yet earn only a tenth of the world’s income and own less than a hundredth of the world’s property. Of the 600 million poor livestock keepers in the world, around two thirds are women and most live in rural areas.

There is a special relationship between women and livestock. Poor women can own livestock when they are denied land. Looking after livestock fits well with their work of running households and raising families. Hundreds of millions of women livestock farmers daily tend sheep, goats and chickens, milk cows, buy and prepare food, plant and harvest crops, weed their plots, look after children, clean their home, fetch and carry water and firewood, prepare every meal for the family, care for the sick and elderly, while often simultaneously running small informal businesses – selling milk, eggs, fruits and vegetables – in market centres and along roadsides.

Women are the great unsung heroes of agricultural development. They are the farm and market managers who make agriculture viable, the glue that holds families and communities together, the stewards who safeguard their environments for the generations to come.

What can be done to better lives through ‘livestock women’?

Broad change will enable women to get more out of livestock. Change is needed in the ways governments, NGOs, and researchers support women livestock keepers. Change is needed in the ways societies value women’s work. Change is needed in service delivery to women farmers.

Patti Kristjanson, leader of this Challenge Dialogue, says:

‘To alleviate severe poverty, we need to change institutions and to engage women. Knowledge and technology is important, but it’s not enough. We have to change our ways of working and give poor people the lead in building their own futures.

‘We already have the skills and tools to bring about meaningful changes. We need the will to make them happen. By working together, we can start to solve a problem too big for any one person, organisation or institution to address alone’ said Kristjanson.

Challenge Dialogue: a new kind of consultation

A ‘Challenge Dialogue’ is a disciplined process of defining a specific challenge, engaging diverse stakeholders in a productive conversation focused on co-creating solutions, and taking action towards the solutions.

It is a proven vehicle for taking groups of more than 100 people through a structured conversation over several months focused on developing alignment and agreement around a plan for solving complex tasks.

‘Challenge Dialogue’ is particularly useful when faced with a significant opportunity or problem to be solved, when you need to bring people together that don’t normally work as a team and get them collaborating quickly and effectively, and you want to move to action within a defined timeframe.

Patti Kristjanson, ILRI’s Innovation Works leader says ‘The idea behind the Challenge Dialogue is that we involve as many diverse participants as possible and engage them in a bigger conversation. Everyone’s opinions are encouraged – thus we get diversity of views and a free flow of innovative ideas and solutions.

The Challenge Dialogue System (CDS) has been developed by Innovation Expedition. See http://www.innovationexpedition.com

The global Challenge Dialogue on Women and Livestock will involve people who are passionate about reducing poverty and improving poor women’s lives. Participants will generate excitement, interest and evidence about how ‘livestock women’ can improve lives and reduce world poverty. It will bring in partners, investments and actions that will better support women livestock keepers and, through them, their vulnerable children, communities and environments.

For more information about ILRI Challenge Dialogues visit the Innovation Works initiative at https://www.ilri.org/innovationworks

If you are interested in participating in the Global Challenge Dialogue on Women and Livestock, please contact Patti Kristjanson. Please provide a brief summary of your background and interests.

Further Information contact:

Patti Kristjanson

Innovation Works Leader
International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)
Nairobi
Kenya
p.kristjanson@cgiar.org

ILRI women in science: What’s changed this International Women’s Day?

Posted on March 7, 2008 by ILRIComms

8 March is International Women’s Day. ILRI women share their thoughts on what has changed for women in science over the last decade.

Celebrated on 8 March every year, International Women’s Day (IWD) connects women around the world, inspiring them to achieve their full potential (http://www.internationalwomensday.com/). Three ILRI women share their thoughts on this year’s International Women’s Day.

Zimbabwean veterinary scientist Siboniso Moyo

Siboniso (‘Boni’) Moyo, an animal scientist from Zimbabwe, is ILRI’s regional representative in Southern Africa, based in Maputo, Mozambique. Boni spent her youth fighting for her country’s freedom, which she was forced to leave at an early age. She managed to obtain an MSc in animal husbandry from the Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow in 1984 and went on to obtain a PhD in animal science from the University of Pretoria in 1997. She has spent the last 22 years conducting livestock research in Zimbabwe and the region. Married to Polex, a fellow Zimbabwean veterinary surgeon she met in Russia, she is raising three extraordinary daughters and loves making a difference among the poor in her community.

What do you see as the biggest change for women in science over the last decade?

‘The number of women in senior management positions in public-sector science has increased. Although their numbers are still too small, this is an improvement over the situation a decade ago.

‘This should encourage young girls to take up science careers. They now have role models. And these women in senior management are now in position to influence policies for gender equity.

What’s your International Women’s Day message to the world?

‘To women in science I say: Encourage girls to take up science in high schools so that they can be enrolled for science subjects at the tertiary level. Mentor the young to grow in this field!

‘To the women in agriculture in the villages and the cities, I say: Keep up your good work! Your contribution is vital for food security and critical for the survival of each and every human being, family and nation. Use this day to acknowledge yourself and to encourage another woman to rise up to the challenges you and others have faced.

Ethiopian plant scientist Segenet Kelemu

Segenet Kelemu, a molecular plant pathologist from Ethiopia, is research director at the Biosciences eastern and central Africa (BecA)-ILRI Platform, based in Nairobi, Kenya. Segenet graduated with a PhD degree in molecular plant pathology from Kansas State University, USA in 1989, and is a graduate of Montana State University, USA, where she obtained an MSc in plant pathology/genetics in 1984. Before joining ILRI, she was a senior scientist at the International Centre for Tropical Agricultural Research (CIAT) in Cali, Colombia.

Segenet enjoys reading, spending time with her family and investing in the education of resource-poor and very bright young girls. She is married to Arjan Gijsman, a soil scientist and computer modelling expert, and has one daughter, Finote.

What do you see as the biggest change for women in science over the last decade?

‘Things are changing positively for women, slowly but surely. Over the last decade we’ve seen an increased number of women leading research teams, as well as more women in senior management positions.

What’s your International Women’s Day message to the world?

‘Women have penetrated and excelled in fields that were largely perceived as male-only areas. The future for women is a lot brighter and lots of progress has been made around the world. We have elected women presidents and leaders in Argentina, Chile, the Philippines, Germany and Liberia and many women now hold top positions in universities, companies and national governments.

‘The acceptance and appreciation of female leaders, by both men and women, represents positive change and progress. Those few women who have made it to the top have demonstrated their effectiveness in their jobs. That is paving the way for other women starting down that road.’

Canadian agricultural economist Patti Kristjanson

Patti Kristjanson, an agricultural economist from Winnipeg, one of the coldest places in Canada, leads ILRI’s Innovations Works, based Nairobi, Kenya.

Married to Frank, a fellow scientist at the World Agroforestry Centre, she has a teenage son and daughter, the latter of whom is already on the path to self-determination.

What do you see as the biggest change for women in science over the last decade?

‘The biggest positive change is that there’s beginning to be some critical mass in female scientists working on sustainable poverty issues in the developing world.

What’s your International Women’s Day message to the world?

‘Women in science tend to understand the power of dialogue, where diverse people work together towards common understanding. Scientific debate, on the other hand, is oppositional and assumes one person is right.

‘Dialogue opens the possibility of reaching a better solution than any of the original solutions. Debate defends one’s own position as the best solution and excludes other solutions.

‘Women scientists can and will lead the global dialogue on innovative and collaborative solutions to sustainable poverty.

Improving women’s lives and livelihoods through livestock

ILRI is facilitating a global consultation to improve lives and livelihoods through women and livestock. This consultation aims to bring together men and women who are passionate about fighting poverty and improving women’s lives.

Patti Kristjanson is leading the Global Challenge Dialogue on Women and Livestock.

Why have you organized a global consultation on women and livestock?

‘Because it’s time to bring together the best and brightest minds and experience from all over the world to increase the awareness of the importance of livestock to the poor – it is often the only asset a poor woman has.

‘The goal is to come up with creative new collaborations and solutions that empower women and enhance their incomes through innovations related to this key asset.’

Do higher meat and milk prices adversely affect poor people?

Posted on March 4, 2008 by ILRIComms

Based on new projections for global food demand, higher prices mean that a larger number of poor consumers will have reduced access to food. This is a key finding in the latest issue of id21 insights.

The February 2008 issue of id21 insights focuses on ‘The growing demand for livestock’. Population and economic growth in developing countries are increasing the demand for food, particularly meat and milk. The growth in food consumption is shifting from industrial to developing countries. As global demand for meat and milk increases, many policies will focus on promoting international trade in livestock and livestock products.

This insight paper contains eight short articles exploring who will benefit from the expanding global markets.

In the article, ‘Do higher milk and meat prices adversely affect poor people?’ division director and policy economist at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Mark Rosegrant and ILRI agricultural systems analyst, Phil Thornton, explore what rising prices will mean for the poor.

One of their key findings is that a larger number of poor consumers will have reduced access to food. Poor livestock keepers will be hit hard and higher cereal prices will impact negatively on all poor people. This is based on new projections for global food demand, produced by IFPRI’s ‘IMPACT’ model and linked to ILRI’s livestock spatial location-allocation model (SLAM).

Thornton warns ‘while there are considerable opportunities for livestock growth, there is a danger that smallholder producers and other poor livestock-dependent people may not be able to take advantage because their access to markets and technologies is constrained.’
The expected growth in demand and supply of livestock-related products will mean profound changes for animal production systems. While there are many opportunities, there are also risks that need to be considered and managed:

• If appropriate food standards and regulatory systems are not implemented, expanded market activity and a rise in exports of livestock and livestock products could threaten food safety and increase the risk of animal disease transmission.
• Declining resource availability could lead to the degradation of land and water resources in livestock systems, as well as loss of animal genetic resources/indigenous livestock diversity.
• In grassland-based systems, grazing intensity is projected to increase by 50% globally as early as 2030, which may result in resource degradation in places.

Pro-poor international trade policies needed

Rosegrant and Thornton conclude that long-term policies will be necessary to ensure that the development of livestock systems plays a role in reducing poverty, as well as mitigating negative environmental impacts, encouraging income equality and supporting progress towards reducing malnutrition.

‘People are increasingly recognising the need to promote pro-poor international trade. We need policies to ensure that small-scale farmers can produce safe livestock products and sell them in appropriate markets. Unfortunately, there are not many examples of this happening in practice’ concludes Rosegrant.

Download id21 insights 72: http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/insights/

Towards customer oriented animal health services

Posted on February 26, 2008 by ILRIComms

The Scientific and Technical Review features ‘participatory epidemiology’ – a customer-oriented approach to disease control and surveillance that is being successfully applied in the battle against bird flu in Indonesia.

The latest issue of the World Animal Health Organization’s (OIE) Scientific and Technical Review contains 21 articles submitted by experts from all over the world describing different animal disease surveillance, control and elimination strategies, including an article on ‘participatory epidemiology’ for the control of deadly animal diseases.
Participatory epidemiologists rely on local knowledge to gather data on how disease is spreading, kept in circulation, and which diseases have most impact on livelihoods, from the perspectives of those affected. This ‘customer-oriented’ approach is throwing up surprises and proving to be working well for a variety of diseases that have big implications for animal health and veterinary public health worldwide.

The authors of the paper, ‘Participatory epidemiology in disease surveillance and research’, from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Ministry of Agriculture, Jakarta and United States Agency for International Development (USAID), summarise current field applications of participatory epidemiology and highlight lessons learned, future challenges and possible new areas for research. They argue that with the increasing international focus on emerging and re-emerging zoonotic diseases (animal to human transmitted), there is an urgent need for better integration of veterinary and public health surveillance programmes.

New approaches to new and old diseases

Traditionally, veterinary authorities and scientists approach disease outbreaks by making expert diagnoses and devising control solutions, with little involvement or consultation with the farmers affected. Participatory epidemiologists work differently and livestock keepers play a central role as key informants.

ILRI’s participatory epidemiologist, Christine Jost explains, ‘Participatory epidemiologists understand the importance of tapping into local knowledge and encouraging the participation of people affected. By involving local livestock keepers, we can gather valuable data on how disease is spreading and kept in circulation.

‘In poor countries there is often a lack of detailed information on disease outbreaks and prevalence. This is largely due to a lack of veterinary infrastructure, and also because there are typically many remote and isolated communities that are hard to reach. Even when there is some infrastructure in place, many authorities assume that farmers will come to their offices to report diseases. However, farmers would have to travel long distances to reach veterinary posts and incur significant costs when reporting disease problems. Thus it is very difficult to assess the real disease situation and the impacts of animal diseases on livelihoods.’

‘We go out into local communities and we talk to villagers. Local livestock keepers are critical in helping us establish livestock disease prevalence, symptoms, recent outbreaks, and also the impacts of different animal diseases from their perspectives. This approach is very much community centred and ‘customer-oriented’, says Jost.

Country experiences

This customer-oriented approach has thrown up some surprises which and reinforced the importance of actively involving local livestock keepers in disease control and surveillance plans and assessing disease priorities.

In Pakistan, authorities had previously thought that Foot and Mouth disease had the most important economic impact on farmers. However, participatory epidemiologists found that most farmers could cope with production losses from Foot and Mouth disease, but they could not cope with the impact of haemorrhagic septicaemia. These farmers took a more holistic view and considered risks and coping mechanisms, alongside economic impacts, when they prioritised diseases. This resulted in a rethinking of how diseases were prioritised by authorities.

In Indonesia, participatory epidemiologists, highlighted the true extent of bird flu. The avian influenza programme was first implemented in Indonesia in 2006 as a pilot programme and this has been rapidly expanded. When the programme was initiated, the extent of bird flu infection was not known. However, participatory epidemiologists found that bird flu was circulating unimpeded in backyard poultry, and within the first 12 months of operation, 800 disease events were detected. The large number of outbreaks detected overwhelmed the response capacity of the district animal health infrastructure, and led to recognition of the need to re-evaluate the national control strategy.

In Kenya, ILRI participatory epidemiologist, Jeff Mariner, led a multi-disciplinary team of participatory epidemiologists, economists and social scientists who assessed the impacts of the recent Rift Valley fever outbreak (a total of 684 human cases including 155 deaths of RVF were reported in Kenya between November 2006 and March 2007). This United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funded project generated some surprising results. One of the key findings was the importance of monitoring livestock owners’ local observations in early warning systems for preventing future outbreaks of the disease. The team is now about to start a follow-on project, contracted by FAO with USAID funds, to apply those lessons to Tanzania, and to develop guidelines for government decision-makers in Kenya and Tanzania so that they can have policies that more effectively take into consideration livestock owners’ knowledge for Rift Valley Fever prevention and control.

The future

While veterinary participatory epidemiology approaches are proving to be working well for various diseases, the authors of the Review paper argue that with the increasing international focus on emerging and re-emerging zoonoses, there is a need for better integration of animal health and public health surveillance programmes.

Traditionally, there is little collaboration or sharing of information between the veterinary and public health sectors. However, in Indonesia, the two sectors are now working together and applying participatory approaches in the fight against bird flu. Veterinary participatory disease surveillance is being used to target participatory public health surveillance to the most at-risk human populations – those whose poultry are experiencing outbreaks of active disease.

ILRI is also involved in another project in Indonesia, which commenced in August 2007. This is being funded by USAID.

According to Jeff Mariner, ‘This project focuses on different applications of participatory epidemiology methods in research.

‘We are testing the impact of alternative avian influenza disease control strategies on disease incidence, as well as testing the feasibility of various control options from an operational and livelihoods viewpoint’ says Mariner.

Mariner, Jost and colleagues are also involved in a pan-African project – Participatory Approaches to Disease Surveillance in Africa (PADSA) – which began in October 2007. The project, scheduled to be completed in two years, involves research to evaluate and apply participatory risk-based approaches to bird flu surveillance and to document lessons learned.

Need for veterinary and public health to work more closely together

The authors of the Review paper argue for the need for veterinary and public health to work more closely together and to apply participatory approaches. They make the following recommendations:

Expand the field of participatory public health through active research to identify public health surveillance and response gaps that can be filled using participatory methods.
Provide advocacy for policies that recognise veterinary services as integral to public health.
Devise innovative ways to integrate participatory disease surveillance workers and participatory public health practitioners in the field; and
Create effective models for integrating public health and veterinary surveillance, including the development of unified ‘public health’ databases.

One step forward has been the establishment of the Participatory Epidemiology Network for Animal and Public Health. Its purpose is to advance the science of participatory epidemiology through targeted research, capacity building, policy enhancement and practitioner education. The network is coordinated by ILRI and includes FAO, OIE, AU-IBAR, and nongovernmental organisations experienced in participatory epidemiology methods.

Article citation
Article reference: CC Jost, JC Mariner, PL Roeder, E Sawitri and GJ Macgregor-Skinner (2007). Participatory epidemiology in disease surveillance and research. Scientific and Technical Review. Volume 26 No 3. The Office International des Epizooties (OIE). pp 537-547. http://www.oie.int/doc/ged/D4693.PDF

Linked articles

Controlling bird flu in Indonesia through local knowledge ILRI news April 2007: /archives/494

Further information:

Christine Jost
Veterinary Epidermiologist
International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)
Nairobi, Kenya
Email: c.jost@cgiar.org
Telephone: +254 (20) 422 3435

Jeff Mariner
Veterinary Epidemiologist
International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)
Nairobi, Kenya
Email@ j.mariner@cgiar.org
Telephone: +254 (20) 422 3432

Feeding tomorrow’s hungry livestock

Posted on February 26, 2008 by ILRIComms

In January 2008 ILRI shipped 4000 samples of tropical fodders and forages to Norway’s Svalbard Global Seed Vault for its offical opening today (26th February). This ‘natural freezer’ will help conserve future feed supplies.

Dramatic losses of plant diversity, including fodders and forages that feed livestock, are one of the greatest challenges facing sustainable development today. Soaring human populations are eroding the world’s plant genetic diversity and other natural resources. Increasing demands for human food, along with urbanization, pollution and land degradation, are squeezing out hardy fodder and forage plants that allow half a billion poor people to keep livestock. These fodders and forages are vital today. In future, they may become the only way poor livestock keepers are able to adapt to climate and other changes.

A genebank maintained by ILRI, in Ethiopia, is part of a global effort to help save food and feed plant diversity before it is too late. ILRI is conserving and studying animal feed crops to help ensure future food supplies.

ILRI and other members of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) are storing their vast seed collections in the new Svalbard global seed vault in Norway as a safety backup. This natural freezer, located in the Arctic Circle, will preserve seeds of these plant varieties for many years. This effort is part of a global commitment under the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. The benefits are universal.
ILRI’s forage diversity project leader, Jean Hanson, says, ‘The 18,000 seed and plant samples held in trust in the ILRI genebank are tested to help scientists deliver appropriate fodders and forages for millions of poor milk and meat producers.

‘In January 2008 ILRI shipped 4000 samples of tropical fodders and forages to Norway’s Svalbard Global Seed Vault. These samples duplicate specimens from ILRI’s vast collection of African forages, the largest and most diverse in the world.’

ILRI genebank: A global public good

ILRI maintains both an active and base genebank in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The active genebank is used for current research and distribution of seeds. Seeds are dried in a dehumidified drying room and packed in laminated aluminium foil bags for storage in the active genebank at 8°C. All seeds in the active collection are freely available in small quantities to bona-fide forage research workers and distributed both directly and through networks.

The base genebank is used for long-term security storage of original germplasm collections. The base genebank acts as a repository of materials that have been reasonably characterized and which may or may not have current interest or use by plant breeders. Collected materials are preserved until such time as there are enough resources available for them to be characterized and evaluated. Materials are stored in the base genebank at -20°C.

ILRI’s director general, Carlos Seré summarizes, ‘We know that weather is set to become more extreme, increasing flooding, soil erosion and salinity, droughts and other causes of land degradation.

‘Climate change will also spread diseases among livestock feed plants as well as crop plants. These changes are already increasing world food prices and threatening lives of the poor.

‘The options scientists are generating through plant genetic diversity research will help small farmers adapt quickly to their changing local environments and markets.’

‘In future, the genes scientists are investigating may provide resistance to drought, disease or salinity, not only in fodder plants but also in maize, rice and other important cereal crops’ concludes Sere.

View film on conserving forage genetic resources

Feeding tomorrow’s hungry livestock: ILRI 3 minute film

Request DVD

Cover image of ILRI’s ‘Managing fodder and forage genetic resources’ DVD

Emai: g.ndungu@cgiar.org to request a copy of this 10 minute film.

Further Information:

ILRI’s forage diversity project leader, Jean Hanson, has been invited to join the International Advisory Council for the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. The council is being established to provide guidance and advice, and will include representatives from FAO, the CGIAR, the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources (ITPGR) and other institutions.

Forage diversity activities at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)

Forage diversity as a global public good

For research-related enquiries contact:

Jean Hanson
Forage diversity project leader
International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)
Addis Ababa, ETHIOPIA
Email: j.hanson@cgiar.org
Telephone: +251 11 617 2000

Moving on: ILRI savanna scientist heads up new Center for Collaborative Conservation

Posted on January 22, 2008 by ILRIComms

After 15 years working out of Nairobi for the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), American Robin Reid leaves for Colorado State University.

After 15 years working out of Nairobi for the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), American Robin Reid leaves for Colorado State University. Reid has been appointed Director of a new Center for Collaborative Conservation at the Warner College of Natural Resources, part of Colorado State University, in Fort Collins. She started her new job in January 2008.

ILRI’s Deputy General for Research, John McDermott, says ‘Robin is a highly respected scientist at all levels—international, national and community—as well as a leading strategic thinker.

‘She has made outstanding contributions to the genesis and evolution of ILRI’s research on people, livestock and the environment, providing visionary thinking and outstanding leadership’ says McDermott.

Reid is ambivalent about departing ILRI and her East African home: ‘For 14 years I’ve had the privilege of working at a world-class research institute with some inspirational people on some exciting ecological projects in one of the most spectacular places—ecologically and otherwise—on earth. My job here has been one most ecologists can only dream of.’

Among things she’ll greatly miss is her field in the vast wildlife-enriched savannas of East Africa. ‘But most of all’, she says, ‘I’ll miss my colleagues, collaborators and friends. That said, I look forward to creating some exciting new projects and working with many of my old colleagues again.’

Meeting in the middle ground

Reid is passionate about science, teaching, pastoralist peoples and pastoral lands. What matters most to her is making a difference in people’s lives and lands and, through science and education, helping both to develop in sustainable ways. The so-called ‘stakeholders’ in her particular research are a particularly diverse and passionate group, including Maasai and other traditional livestock herders as well as livestock scientists, land owners as well as community leaders, and policymakers as well as conservationists. Reid’s research regularly brought representatives of these groups together to find common ground and common solutions to urgent land-use and related problems now facing East Africa’s traditional pastoralists and the increasingly fragmented fragile ecosystems that support them.

‘If I could have one professional dream, it would be to help local communities build their livelihoods and conserve biodiversity and landscapes in a way that clearly benefits both,’ says Reid.

‘The world is fractured into camps of polarized views about East Africa’s pastoral lands and their people, livestock, and wildlife. Some groups argue passionately for people—for conserving or developing the semi-migratory pastoral ways of life of the Maasai and other livestock peoples here with little consideration of the environment—while others argue just as passionately for conserving the spectacular diverse herds of big mammals that share East Africa’s vast pastoral lands with little concern for people’s livelihoods. ‘We won’t solve any problems here,’ says Reid, ‘until we all meet in the middle ground and work together.’

Highlights from Reid’s work

Reid started work at ILRI in 1992 as a Rockefeller Fellow on ILRAD’s Epidemiology and Economics team, leading a pan-African study on the environmental and economic impacts of controlling the tsetse fly, which transmits human and animal trypanosomosis (known as sleeping sickness in humans). In 1999, Reid and colleagues founded an initiative called Land-Use Change Impacts and Dynamics, or ‘LUCID’, for short. This network of national and international scientists investigates land-use change in East Africa and its impacts on lands, biodiversity and climate change, and makes sure information generated by this research gets in the hands of policy makers. About this time, Reid’s team began focusing on sustaining pastoral lands and livelihoods. From 2001 to 2004, Reid coordinated ILRI’s People, Livestock and Environment Program, and then beginning in 2004, led a project on Sustaining Lands and Livelihoods. In 2005, Reid was appointed Senior Fellow at Harvard’s Center for Sustainability Science.

Reid has authored and co-authored over 90 scientific publications and 5 books. She has supervised, mentored and advised over 20 MSc and PhD students and raised some USD20 million in grants. Summaries of some of her projects appear below.

LUCID: Getting the facts out about people, wildlife and livestock

The main objective of the LUCID network is to find regional research approaches to stemming losses of East African lands and biodiversity while sustaining the livelihoods of the peoples who depend on them. LUCID has six research sites: in Kenya, the eastern slopes of Mount Kenya and the northern slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro; In Tanzania, the southern slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro; and in Uganda, Sango Bay on Lake Victoria, Lake Mburo National Park and Ntungamo. Reid is proud that LUCID, set up in 1999, is alive and well today. ‘LUCID brings the best of science to policymakers in this region,’ she says. ‘Policymakers of all kinds and at all levels are in urgent need of scientific evidence for their decision-making, which affects the lives of millions of people.’

The Mara Count: Counting people, wildlife and livestock

Much of the spectacular wildlife of Kenya’s famous Masai Mara Reserve is disappearing at an alarming rate. The whole of the Greater Serengeti-Mara Ecosystem is of particular concern because nearly 70 per cent of the wildlife here was lost between 1976 to 1996. Pastoral peoples living in the Mara ecosystem have less livestock per person than they did 20 years ago, and about half survive on an income of less than Kenyan shillings (Ksh) 70 (USD1) per day. If these trends continue, it’s probable that the Mara in 20 year’s time will support very little wildlife and very poor pastoral people.

‘Work to conserve the Mara’s priceless wildlife populations and to improve returns from wildlife tourism to its Maasai people is being jeopardized by disjointed efforts, by all stakeholders in the Mara’s development,’ says Reid. ‘The Mara Count in 2002 was one effort to redress this. This project was a joint venture by pastoral peoples, conservationists, private industry, land managers and researchers in the region to create vast scientific datasets that would form the foundation of future decisions to conserve wildlife and develop pastoral peoples livelihoods.’

This project counted wildlife and livestock and much more in the Masai Mara region. Thirty-six local community members, 5 land managers, 6 tourist operators and 15 scientists participated, producing and analyzing 3.4 million data points published in a report and on a website. See http://www.maasaimaracount.org

ILRI Brief: People, Wildlife and Livestock in the Mara: mahider.ilri.org/bitstream/10568/2270/1/PolicyBrief3MaraLandUse.pdf

Reto-o-Reto: Balancing people, wildlife and livestock

People, wildlife and livestock have co-existed and co-evolved on the East African savannas for millennia. But this intermingling has declined greatly in recent decades. Conservation policies have excluded people and livestock from wildlife parks and protected areas. Meantime, growing human populations and expanding cropping and agriculture have excluded wildlife and pastoral use of lands. Thus, in many parts of the region, wildlife populations have declined by nearly half while livestock populations have remained stagnant and human populations have grown. Millions of pastoralists now have no choice but to diversify their livelihoods beyond livestock.

In the Maa language of the Masai ‘Reto-o-Reto’ means ‘I help you; you help me’. ILRI’s collaborative Reto-o-Reto Project focuses on sustainable development of pastoral landscapes, improving the livelihoods of agro-pastoralists and also protecting the diversity of wildlife species and savanna landscapes.

The Reto-o-Reto Project sites are in Maasailand of Kenya and Tanzania and include the pastoral lands surrounding protected areas in the Mara/Transmara and Kitengela in Kenya, Amboseli/Longido in Kenya and Tanzania, and Tarangire/Simanjiro in Tanzania. The four sites represent contrasts in land tenure, national policies and degree of land use intensification. Each site has a different set of challenges. See http://www.reto-o-reto.org

A central aim of ILRI’s Reto-o-Reto Project was to involve communities and policymakers in research that would be useful and used by them. Reid and her team created and wrote a large grant to fund a unique communication team that consists of 8 scientists, 5 community facilitators and 1 policy facilitator. This facilitation team formed a critical link between the scientific team and about 50 local communities.

‘The Reto-o-Reto Project has been more effective at helping people than any of us dreamed,’ says Reid. ‘We’ve held over 600 meetings with local communities throughout the region to identify problems, make cross-site visits to other communities and present research results.

‘Working with local media was instrumental in getting the word out. We initiated a local radio program series that reaches thousands of pastoral people on the ground and raised the profile of pastoral issues with national and regional policy makers,’ she said.

In December 2006, the Reto-o-Reto collaboration with the Kitengela Ilparakuo Landowners Association (KILA) won an international award from the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). While this award focused on the ILRI-KILA link, this link was supported by and enriched by efforts of many collaborative organizations. This award for innovative partnerships between research institutes and civil society organizations came with a cash prize of USD 30,000 for use in further collaborative work. Below is a link to a photo-essay on the Reto-o-Reto Project at Kitengela, a fast-changing wildlife-enriched pastoral community lying on the outskirts of Kenya’s booming capital of Nairobi, which describes the challenges facing this pastoral community and some of the solutions being implemented by researchers, the local community, landowners and policymakers.

ILRI brief: Saving Lands and Livelihoods in Kitengela: https://cgspace.cgiar.org/bitstream/10568/2273/1/ILRI%20Photo%20essay%20SavingLandsAndLivelihoodsInKitengela%202006.pdf

Further Information

Robin Reid
Director, Center for Collaborative Conservation
Warner College of Natural Resources, Corolado State University
Email: robin.reid@colostate.edu

Evolution of poverty and inequality in Uganda

Posted on December 17, 2007 by ILRIComms

According to a new report, poverty in Uganda has reduced in more than 80 percent of the rural sub-counties though this reduction has been least in the Northern region.

Nature, Distribution and Evolution of Poverty and Inequality in Uganda, describes and summarizes the trends in poverty and inequality in Uganda over the period 1992-2002. The report is the culmination of a two-year research project conducted by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS), World Resources Institute in collaboration with the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), with technical assistance from the World Bank and with financial support from the Rockefeller Foundation. These new poverty measures can be used to help target, design and implement pro-poor development strategies that are both effective and inclusive.

This report presents information using the most recent data from the National Population and Housing Census of 2002 and the National Household Survey of 2002/3 and examines the changes in poverty over the period 1992-2002 as well as providing estimates of Ugandan poverty and inequality at the district, county and sub-county levels. The new estimates of well-being presented in this report are based on statistical techniques that combine existing survey and census datasets. Within sub-counties, poverty and inequality measures are computed for rural and urban communities. The report also demonstrates how poverty maps can be combined with other indicators of well-being to better understand the phenomenon of poverty. The results from the analysis of changes in poverty levels for 1992–2002 show that rural and urban areas with low initial poverty rates also experienced significant decreases in the absolute number of poor people by 2002.

The analysis of this publication makes use of the information from the 2002 population and Housing Census and the 2002/3 Uganda National Household Survey (UNHS). It builds on the previous work presented in the publication ‘Where are the poor? Mapping patterns of well-being in Uganda 1992-1999‘ which presented poverty estimates for each administrative district and county in Uganda. Building on and improving upon previous work, this analysis utilizes the most recent available data and investigates the potential for improving service and development targeting by complementing the new poverty information with geographical infrastructural and service information for key sectors of the economy, an important concern in a growing country like Uganda.

‘The Government of Uganda had for many days been allocating resources to districts and communities with limited experiential basis for the decisions to target for example income inequality. Although this disbursement of funds was meant to reduce poverty and improve project implementation, there was a risk of achieving limited success, partly due to the lack of information. To that end, the poverty maps could go a long way in helping to make informed decisions. There is also need for government and policy makers as well as development partners, to rely on empirical indicators for targeting resources,’ says the Executive Director of the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, John B. Male –Mukasa.

The aim of this research is to support implementation of the Poverty Eradication Action Plan by providing information that can improve design and targeting of specific poverty interventions and assist in crafting better targeted programmes that help the poor in Uganda meet their basic consumptions needs.

How have poverty levels changed over the decade, if at all?

The highest drops in poverty in rural areas between 1992 and 1999 were in Central and parts of western regions, but the new analysis show that poverty has reduced in more than 80 percent of the rural sub-counties of Uganda, the report provides critical indicators for evidence-based pro-poor policy making and key benchmarks for measuring the progress made by the government of Uganda. A comparison of national poverty levels for 1992 and 2002 points towards an improvement in welfare over the decade, with the national poverty rate falling from 56% in 1992 to 39% in 2002. Between 1992 and 2002, estimated poverty incidence shows a marked decline in both urban and rural areas. In urban areas the incidence of poverty decreases by 16 percentage points compared to 18 percentage points in rural areas. Urban poverty was more concentrated in the Northern and Western regions in 2002 relative to the Central and Eastern regions. The absolute number of poor people increased in the Northern and Western regions by 130% and 112.5% respectively. In contrast, in the Central and Eastern regions, the absolute number of poor people declined by 62% and 45% respectively. The Northern Region had the highest urban poverty incidence in 1992 (50%) and 2002 (38%). It also had the highest poverty increment between 1992 and 2002. Central Region, with relatively low urban poverty incidence in 1992 (19%) and 2002 (17%), demonstrated the highest reduction in poverty incidence over the same period.

In the rural areas, the situation is slightly different with more poor people concentrated in the Northern and Eastern regions than in the Central and Western regions. The absolute number of poor people increased in the Northern and Eastern regions by 48% and 14% respectively. Conversely, in Central and Western regions, the absolute number of rural poor declined by 32% and 14% respectively. As is the case in the urban areas, Northern Region, with the highest poverty incidence in 1992 (75%) and 2002 (66%) also had the highest increase in absolute number of poor between 1992 and 2002. Similarly, in Central Region with relatively low poverty incidence in 1992 (54%) and in 2002 (27%), we see the highest poverty reduction over the same period.

The results from the analysis of changes in poverty levels for 1992–2002 show that rural and urban areas with low initial poverty rates also experienced significant decreases in the absolute number of poor people by 2002. Areas with high initial poverty rates instead witnessed increased absolute numbers of poor people by 2002.

Download the book: https://cgspace.cgiar.org/handle/10568/1542

Data for the changes in poverty can be obtained on request from the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS )and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).

—

Snapshot: Uganda

Uganda, located in eastern Africa, has an estimated population of 25.3 million and an annual population growth rate of 2.7%. The country has been plagued by an on-going 20-year-old war in the north between the government and rebel fighters. The rebels have become notorious for their crimes against civilians and for the abduction and murder of children. This has resulted in about 20,000 displaced persons, many of whom live in government ‘internally displaced’ camps. Over a million women and children have been affected. Children too afraid to sleep at night for fear of being abducted by rebels during their dawn raids on villages leave their homes each evening. They have become known as the ‘night commuters’ of northern Uganda – traveling from their villages to the safety of towns to avoid capture. Of recent, some progress has been made in terms of return of peace to the region. Currently, the LRA rebels and government are engaged in peace talks aimed at ending the 20 year civil war.

Although this paints a bleak picture, Uganda as a whole has made great strides, taking advantage of significant growth in the 1990s and is considered a model of development in Africa. Crippling inflation rates have been brought under control and GDP growth has been impressive, at 7.9% in 1999 and with a projected growth rate of 6.2% in 2005. Agriculture is the most important sector of the economy, contributing over 32% of GDP and employing over 80% of the work force. Uganda’s principal export is coffee, along with fish, fish products, cotton and tea.

Despite Uganda’s progress and concerted poverty reduction efforts, poverty is still widespread, with an estimated 31% (in 2005/06) of the population living below the national poverty line. The latest figures show the average life expectancy of a Ugandan is 43 years (47 years in 1990), infant mortality is 83 per 1000 live births, and under-5 mortality is 141 per 1000 children. The annual number of births is 1.3 million, but an estimated 184,000 children under 5 die each year.

(Data sources: World Bank; UNICEF.)

Livestock research in Asia: Strategy and action plan launched in Beijing

Posted on December 17, 2007 by ILRIComms

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and partners have launched a new strategy and action plan for livestock research in Asia to ensure research has an impact on poverty reduction.

‘Livestock Asia: A strategy and action plan for research for poverty reduction’ was launched at the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) Annual General Meeting in Beijing on 3 December 2007. The strategy and plan, which focuses on South Asia, South East Asia, and China, was created by over 50 organizations and individuals, during a five-month consultative process, facilitated by ILRI. The strategy contains a five-point action plan designed to ensure that livestock research ultimately has an impact on poverty reduction.

‘We hope that it will be of value to all those interested in reducing poverty through livestock research and development in South and South-East Asia, and China,’ explained Iain Wright, ILRI’s Regional Representative for Asia.

‘In particular, we hope that it will be used by researchers, policymakers, aid specialists and development practitioners to guide the development of their policies, programs, and projects’ said Wright.

300 million people depend on livestock in Asia

Three hundred million poor people in South Asia and another 100 million in South-East Asia and China, depend to some extent on livestock for their livelihoods. Rapidly growing economies and changing patterns of food consumption are driving increased demands for livestock products. This presents unique opportunities to reduce poverty through livestock production and marketing. The opportunities will only be realized if the poor can respond by generating marketable surpluses and accessing the market. Research towards poverty reduction through livestock can contribute to achieving this goal.

There are a number of key drivers changing the livestock landscape in Asia. These include a growing gap in income between urban and rural areas, rapidly growing demand and rising prices for livestock products, and changes in the way food is retailed, linked to changes in the supply chain. Trade liberalization is opening up new markets, but endemic and emerging diseases such as Avian Influenza can threaten access. Livestock production can have both positive and negative environmental impacts, and production systems are changing with intensification and competition for crops for human and animal feed and biofuels.

New roles emerging
There are evolving policy needs and new roles for the public and private sectors. This is taking place against a background of new communication technologies that are opening up new ways of sharing knowledge. There are, however, major challenges on how to manage knowledge effectively.

Creating the research agenda
The strategy recognizes that the poor are particularly vulnerable to external shocks because of their small asset base. It also recognizes that research is only one small but critical component in the process of improving pro-poor animal agriculture and market development.

According to Carlos Seré, Director General of ILRI, ‘No single organization can ensure that the research that it carries out will reduce poverty. This requires the collaboration of many groups of stakeholders that extend way beyond the traditional research community.’

‘To ensure that research is relevant to the needs of the poor and that research outputs result in action, new partnerships will need to be formed’ he said.

‘National and international researchers, extension services, donors, development organizations, government at all levels, the private sector, regional organizations, representatives of local groups and farmers, producer organization and consumers need to work together to create the research agenda. This will ensure that research methodologies are appropriate and that research outputs make a real difference on the ground.’

Focus on process: The ‘how’ rather than the ‘what’
In recognition of the need for stakeholders to be involved in the development of the research agenda, the Livestock Asia Strategy and Plan does not identify priority research topics. It concentrates on how research for poverty reduction through livestock could be approached and conducted, rather than what research should be conducted. If the appropriate ways of working can be defined, if relevant partnerships can be developed, and if the appropriate skills can be brought to bear, then the establishment of research priorities and topics should be a logical consequence of that process.

The Executive Secretary of APAARI (Asia Pacific Association of Agricultural Research Institutes), Dr Raj Paroda, welcomed the launch of the plan. Speaking at the launch in Beijing, he said ‘APAARI is delighted with this initiative to create a strategic plan for pro-poor animal agricultural research in Asia. It is timely, and we will certainly be a willing partner in taking this important initiative forward.’

Action points
Five key actions have been identified for implementation in the short term to improve the effectiveness of pro-poor livestock research in South and South-East Asia, and China, and the plan outlines how these action points will be taken forward:
1. Raising awareness and promoting the need for livestock research for poverty reduction
2. Developing a livestock knowledge resource for Asia
3. Defining regional research issues
4. Working in partnership
5. Capacity strengthening

Download Livestock Asia: A strategy and action plan for research for poverty reduction

Development and launch of the Livestock Asia Strategy and Plan

This strategy and plan focuses on the tropical and semi-tropical agricultural regions of South and South-East Asia, and China, regions dominated by smallholder, mixed crop–livestock systems with smaller populations of pastoralists, especially in South Asia. This plan has been produced by a large group of stakeholders in a process facilitated by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). The steps in the process were:

1. In August 2007, a Challenge Dialogue Paper was produced, following discussions with a small group of stakeholders in South and South-East Asia. The discussion paper, which set out certain assumptions, assertions, and questions, was sent to over 150 individuals representing a wide group of stakeholders from the research and development communities in the public and private sectors. They were invited to respond and provide ideas and suggestions. Forty-eight responses were received.

2. In September, the responses were summarized and synthesized in a Progress Report, which was sent to 150 stakeholders for further comment.

3. In October, two follow-up workshops were held in Bangkok and Kathmandu with stakeholders from South-East and South Asia respectively. The task was to validate the responses to the Challenge Dialogue paper, to clarify and further develop some of the ideas received, to check for gaps in information, and to identify specific activities that could be undertaken in pursuit of a pro-poor livestock research and development agenda.

4. In November, the strategy and plan was drafted. Input and comments were received from representatives from 12 countries within the region, as well as from individuals and organizations outside Asia with an interest in the region. Over 50 organisations – representing international, national and regional interests – participated in the creation of the strategy and action plan.

5. In December 2007, the strategy and action plan was launched at the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) Annual General Meeting in Beijing.

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