Sweet sorghum: Utilizing every ‘drop’

Posted on August 22, 2007 by ILRIComms

Poor livestock keepers in the drylands point to feed shortages as one of their biggest animal production constraints. Research in India is demonstrating that sweet sorghum's traditional use as a dual-purpose food and feed crop and its modern day use as a bio-fuel need not be mutually exclusive

Sweet sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) is well adapted to the semi-arid regions of the tropics. One of its main advantages is that it is very water-use efficient It has long been used by farmers as a multi-purpose crop from which they extract grain for human consumption and stover for livestock feed. Today, sweet sorghum is becoming increasingly used in industrial bio-fuel production in India. It is one of the most efficient dryland crops to convert atmospheric CO2 into sugar and is therefore a viable alternative for the production of ethanol.

Sweet sorghum’s role in India’s bio-fuel plans
‘All countries, including India, are grappling with the problem of meeting the ever-increasing demand for fuel within the constraints of international commitments, legal requirements, environmental concerns and limited resources. In this connection fuels of biological origin have drawn a great deal of attention during the last two decades.

‘India wishes to consider the use of bio-diesel and ethanol for blending with petro-diesel and petrol. Oil provides energy for 95% of transportation and the demand for transport fuel continues to rise. The extract from the third assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that global oil demand will rise by 1.68% from 75 million barrels per day (mb/d) in the year 2002 to 120 mb/d in 2030. Energy input in agriculture is also increasing. Part of this energy should come from bio-based fuel, which is short term renewable.
‘Ethanol is used as a fuel or as an oxygenate to gasoline. In India, raw material used for producing ethanol varies from sugar, cereals (sweet sorghum), sugar beet, and molasses. Brazil uses ethanol as 100% fuel in about 20% of vehicles. Use of a 5% ethanol gasoline blend is already approved by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and is in a progressive state of implementation in India.’

Excerpted from: ‘Development of Value Chain for Bio-fuel in India’, National Agricultural Innovation Project (NAIP). NAIP website: http://www.naip.icar.org.in

Win-win situation
Increasing industrial usage of sweet sorghum for ethanol production does, on one hand, provide important income for dryland farmers, but it can also divert biomass away from livestock, thus adding to the feed scarcity problem being faced by livestock keepers. However, scientists are demonstrating that full use of all parts of the sweet sorghum plant can meet both industrial and livestock feed needs.
Collaborative work between the International Crop Research Center for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), the Rusni Distillery in Sanga Reddy Medak District, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research’s National Research Center for Sorghum (NRCS), in Hyderabad, and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) is demonstrating the feasibility of manufacturing marketable sweet sorghum feed blocks using the stripped leaves and the crushed stalks (bagasse) remaining after juice extraction for ethanol. A bagasse-based feed block has been manufactured in collaboration with Miracle Fodder and Feeds in Hyderabad and is currently being tested with large and small ruminants with very promising results.
Full utilization of crops and their by-products in the balanced production of food, feed and industrial products is likely to become increasingly important in developing countries. Total utilization of all parts of the sweet sorghum plant for use in the manufacturing and food industries would help compensate for fodder loss and provide an additional source of income for farmers.

Value-added products from by-products

Surveys of fodder markets in Hyderabad showed that stover from ordinary grain sorghum is widely traded as livestock fodder. This stover is sourced from several Indian States, transported over distances of more than 350 km and fetches retail prices that are about half the value of the sorghum grain. Higher quality stover fetches premium prices ranging from 3.1 to 3.9 Indian rupees per kilogram of dry stover.
The fodder quality of feed blocks made from sweet sorghum leaf strippings and bagasse is similar to premium stover made from grain sorghum. Scientists estimate that this feed could fetch prices of 6 rupees per kg and more. The manufacturing of feed blocks could therefore offer attractive additional income along a sweet sorghum utilization chain. The feed blocks could be made more nutritious by adding sorghum grain distillery by-products—where the grain is used for biofuel production—and/or by targeted fortification with other supplements. The end product would be an attractive sweet sorghum by-product based feed block of good quality and with a high density, making

Germany helps Africa fight bird flu by investing in its people

Posted on August 17, 2007 by ILRIComms

Substantial GTZ support provided to ILRI and AU-IBAR has provided 80 laboratory staff in 37 African countries with specialized knowledge in rapid detection of highly pathogenic avian influenza

This program of the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) for early detection of bird flu in Africa did more than train people in advanced techniques for diagnosing a new disease. It invested in people, connecting them in a ‘who’s who’ of skilled African laboratory staff as well as a handful of international bird flu experts focusing on Africa. It united these laboratory experts in a common cause.

As Carola von Morstein, coordinator of the GTZ Task Force on Avian Influenza, puts it, ‘This—remarkably the first regional training in Africa to diagnose avian influenza—is helping to improve transparency, communication and information exchange in bird flu campaigns. We will publish in print and on the web a training manual so we can widely share the lessons learned in this training. One of those lessons is the great advantage to be gained in coordinating work to prevent and control bird flu across the continent.’

Staff at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the Africa Union’s Interafrican Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR), who organized the series of intensive training courses conducted over the last year across the continent, are interested in continuing their work with GTZ to sustain this cooperation among agricultural, veterinary and medical experts. Such inter-sector cooperation in disease control is regrettably unusual in all countries but particularly so in those lacking resources to bring together experts from different ministries and disciplines.

ILRI’s research director John McDermott is excited about this cooperative aspect of the project. ‘The network of African veterinary and human diagnosticians created by this training over the past year has great potential. It has fostered “diagnostic champions” in Africa who are being consulted by their colleagues. The benefits of this will go beyond avian influenza to other important infectious diseases of both people and animals.’

ILRI’s director general Carlos Seré also sees opportunity to build on the momentum that has been created. ‘We’re interested to explore with others how this regional emergency training might be transformed into long-term indigenous capacity-building for better control of infectious diseases in Africa.’

Other partners involved in organizing the training courses or providing training materials were the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Animal Health Organization (OIE), the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the U.S.-based Centres for Disease Control (CDC). ILRI and AU-IBAR worked closely together to conduct a basic 10-day training course that they held in three countries: Cameroon, Kenya and Senegal. They drew trainers from OIE/FAO/WHO avian influenza reference laboratories, ILRI, AU-IBAR, CDC-Kenya, the Institut Pasteur, the Centre Pasteur and African universities and research organizations.

These courses revealed that most African countries have the capacity to collect samples of bird flu virus, including the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus, and ship these to designated laboratories for analyses. Some of these labs can also perform basic serological tests for bird flu virus. But few of them are equipped with the advanced diagnostic tests in molecular diagnosis and virology or with the BL3 facility (a laboratory built to a secure biosafety level 3) needed to handle the deadly live H5N1 virus. ILRI and AU-IBAR staff organizing the training courses targeted the few labs that did have these facilities to serve as regional reference laboratories and provided 20 of their staff with two advanced training courses (one in English, the other in French) conducted at South Africa’s ARC-Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute (OVI), in Pretoria, which is equipped with all the facilities needed for diagnosis of avian influenza. (OVI had previously trained staff in southern African countries.)

Funding for this project was provided by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented by GTZ within its ‘Poverty Reduction in Rural Areas’ project. The latter works to boost—in a sustained manner—the capacity of developing countries to prepare for and respond to outbreaks of bird flu. With uncommon foresight, this German project further helps countries implement preventive measures that help their farming communities maintain their livestock, the mainstay of livelihoods of the rural poor. Among the farm animals at risk from zoonotic diseases and conventional programs implemented to control them are many local poultry breeds kept by the poorest of the poor.

Carola von Morstein, leader of the GTZ Task Force conducting this pro-poor work fighting avian and human influenza, visited Nairobi this week to consult with ILRI and AU-IBAR directors and scientists who organized the training and tailored the English and French courses to suit African circumstances.

In early July, the first follow-up training took place in three veterinary laboratories in Ghana. Staffs of the laboratories in Accra, Pong Tamale and Kumasi were trained by the German Friedrich-Löffler-Institute (FLI). This Federal Research Institute for Animal Health has a Task Force for Epidemiology. GTZ and FLI are together providing training to affected countries such as Ghana. GTZ also procured for these laboratories equipment, such as Quick Tests Influenza Kits, V-bottomed Microtest-Plates and Pipettes, to ensure that the country is equipped for diagnosis of bird flu.

For more information about this GTZ project, email the GTZ task team:
carola.morstein-von@gtz.de> or
kerstin.schoell@gtz.de

or the Rene Bessin at AU-IBAR:
rene.bessin@au-ibar.org

or Duncan Mwangi or Roger Pellé at ILRI:
d.mwangi@cgiar.org and r.pelle@cgiar.org

ILRI wins 10 awards for communication excellence

Posted on July 13, 2007 by ILRIComms

The international Association for Communication Excellence in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Life and Human Sciences (ACE) recently presented the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) with 10 top awards for excellence in communication.

ACE aims to extend knowledge about agriculture, natural resources, and life and human science to people worldwide by developing the professional skills of its members. Members include writers, editors, photographers, web developers and researchers working in universities, government agencies and research organizations in the public and private sectors throughout the world. ACE operates an annual Critique and Awards programme geared toward providing members with professional critiques of their work and recognizing those who have excelled. (www.aceweb.org)

This year ILRI won 10 top awards: two gold, four silver and four bronze awards. The awards were presented to ILRI’s corporate communications officer, Grace Ndungu, by ACE’s president Bob Sams at a banquet organized for the conference participants in Albuquerque, New Mexico on 19 June 2007.

Bruce Scott, ILRI’s director of partnerships and communication, says ‘the efforts that have been put into making sure that ILRI’s communicates to the world professionally – so that science can make the biggest difference on world poverty – are starting pay off significantly. It’s very rewarding that others judge us to excel at this.’

007 ACE Gold Awards

Covers of three ILRI big issue briefs: Saving Lives and Protecting Livelihoods,
Climate Change in Africa and Combating Bird flu

Cover of the sixth Annual Peter Doherty lecture

2007 ACE Silver Awards

Content, images and overall presentation of the ILRI Annual Report 2005 ‘Knowledge to Action’

Film script of the ILRI and Doyle Foundation ‘Trypanosomosis Control’ DVD

Images and overall presentation of ILRI’s information folder

Image of a woman spinning cotton in her home in southern Mali,
contained in the ILRI Annual Report 2005

2007 ACE Bronze Awards

Cover of the ‘Mapping climate vulnerability and poverty in Africa’ book

Content, images and overall presentation of the
‘Highlights’ section in the ILRI Annual Report 2005

Image, message and overall presentation of ILRI’s 2006 Christmas Greeting Card

Filming of the ‘ILRI at Work 2006’ DVD

In previous years ILRI has won 6 ACE awards: one gold, two silver and three bronze, for its cutting-edge communications products. (https://www.ilri.org/ILRIPubAware/ShowDetail.asp?CategoryID=TS&ProductReferenceNo=TS%5F060905%5F002

Endgame

Posted on June 11, 2007 by ILRIComms

When is it the ‘end of the game’ for livestock keepers wresting a living from diminishing natural resources? A new study suggests when adaptations to increasing external stresses are no longer viable for livestock peoples and their lands.

Sub-Saharan Africa has been called the food crisis epicentre of the world. Global change is likely to add to the burdens of many millions of poor and vulnerable people on the continent. Equipping policymakers and donor agents with tools and information with which to identify the ‘bounds of the possible’ in natural resource use is likely to become crucial in the fight to help hundreds of millions of Africans dependent on diminishing natural resources escape poverty, hunger and environmental degradation.

The business of scientists conducting livestock research for development is to help farmers and herders protect and grow their ‘living assets’ so that small-scale livestock enterprises become sustainable pathways out of poverty. That is what a group of scientists set out to do in an ‘integrated assessment’ of coping strategies in livestock dependent households in East and Southern Africa. Integrated assessment combines models to test the likely impacts of different future scenarios on ecological functioning as well as household well-being.

The authors of this new study entitled ‘Coping strategies in livestock-dependent households in East and Southern Africa’, recently published in the scientific journal Human Ecology, synthesized results of work undertaken in four livestock systems in eastern and southern Africa: pastoralist communities in northern Tanzania, agro-pastoralists in southern Kenya, communal and commercial ranchers in South Africa, and mixed crop-and-livestock farmers in western Kenya.

The authors of the synthesis are scientists at the Africa-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Colorado State University’s Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory and Department of Anthropology, and the Eastern and Central Africa Programme for Agricultural Policy Analysis. The results of their study confirm that household capacity to adapt to increasing external stresses is governed by the flexibility the householders are able to exercise in livelihood options. Such options include intensifying one’s crop and animal production, diversifying the kinds of plant and animal products one produces on the farm, and working for wages in a job found off the farm. The researchers quantified the likely impacts on households and ecosystems of people taking up such options. The results are being used to better target interventions designed to help poor people manage increasing change and risk.

The four case studies employed in this synthesis, all conducted since the late 1990s, looked at increasing risks and external stresses in the pastoral, agro-pastoral and mixed crop-livestock agricultural systems of eastern and southern Africa. All four studies focussed on households made particularly vulnerable not only because they rely on diminishing ecosystems goods and services (e.g., land, water, forages) for a large part of their livelihoods but also because they face volatile changes driven or characterized by increasing (1) population growth; (2) in-migrations and fragmentations of pastoral lands; (3) climate change and variability; and (4) increasing/changing consumption of meat, milk and other livestock foods and (5) decreasing land size.

In each case study, the researchers worked directly with farmers and pastoralists in collecting data with which to build and calibrate appropriate household models, in setting up and testing a wide variety of scenarios, and in visualizing and assessing the likely impacts of interventions on the various system components. Discussions by stakeholders and researchers of results of running the models helped disclose other scenarios to investigate and identify options that were subsequently tested by the farmers.

This paper synthesizes lessons learnt from these case studies and outlines future research needs.

Conclusions

The mixture of fieldwork and integrated assessment modelling employed in this synthesis indicate that having different options available with which to manage natural resources can help households at least partially overcome the effects of increasing stresses to the system caused by population growth, changes in climate and weather variability and land fragmentation. But there are also costs to implementing these options: costs to natural resources, to other stakeholder groups and to household incomes. Furthermore, households can offset increased stresses through natural resource management only up to a point. With the tools employed in these assessments, scenarios can be set up and run that go well beyond these thresholds, to points where offsetting is no longer possible through internal manipulation of the system.

The good news
The four case studies used in this synthesis indicate that households can partially offset the impacts of external stresses by increasing the size of cultivated plots (as pastoral communities are doing in northern Tanzania and agro-pastoral communities in southern Kenya), by diversifying their activities into other agricultural and nonagricultural activities (agro-pastoral communities in southern Kenya), by using climate forecasts to make stocking decisions (communal and commercial ranchers in drought-prone regions of South Africa), and by intensifying and/or diversifying agricultural production (mixed crop-livestock farmers in western Kenya).

The bad news
Although households are able to offset impacts of increasing stress to some degree through diversification and intensification, implementing these options generates other potential, and actual costs. ‘What this simply means’, says ILRI’s Philip Thornton, lead author of the synthesis, ‘is that there are thresholds in these systems beyond which it is unlikely that management options alone can offset increasing system stresses.’

Thornton says the integrated assessment framework is useful in identifying not only what is desirable, in terms of possible impacts on different groups of stakeholders, but also what is feasible. ‘Given increasing system stresses,’ he says, ‘the point may well be reached at which natural-resource-based livelihood options are simply no longer feasible.’

Indeed, a key use of integrated assessment is identifying situations where households are unlikely to be able to sustain current livelihood options based on exploitation of natural resources. In such cases, appropriate livelihood options will likely involve making radical rather than incremental shifts in agricultural and/or livestock productivity, finding off-farm employment, and exiting farming enterprises altogether.

The news for policymakers
All four case studies analyzed in this synthesis have substantial implications for policymaking. Among these are the following:

The new options that poor households need to consider when adapting to change do not impinge merely on one or two economic sectors but rather strike at the heart of national policies for food security, self-sufficiency and the role of agriculture in economic growth and development in general (see Ellis 2004). Such policy debates can be enhanced by research.
Policymakers can profit from demanding, supporting and utilizing broad integrated assessments that apply new approaches to development. Such approaches include those based on the principles of ‘integrated natural resources management’ (see Sayer and Campbell 2001) and ‘adaptive resource management’ and ‘adaptive governance of resilience’ (see Folke et al. 2002 and Walker et al. 2004).
Poorer people often have the most to gain from implementing options that increase household ability to cope with change. Investments in developing and disseminating coping strategies and risk management options thus can help alleviate poverty in substantial ways.
Householders’ objectives and their attitudes about, and access to, natural resources vary greatly. The type of household model best suited to each case will thus often differ, requiring that integrated assessments be done on a case-by-case basis. As Thornton says, ‘So-called “recommendation domains” for targeting technology and policy interventions are probably smaller than we thought.’ Acknowledging that, contrary to conventional wisdom, research impacts cannot easily be generalized across large areas has considerable implications for the way in which research for development can most effectively be carried out.
We need to employ a dynamic framework to assess the ecological impacts of changes, together with their major feedbacks to livelihood systems, over the medium term at the least. There are lags and dampers in the system that need to be elucidated in any even partially integrated assessment.
The assessment framework has to allow the quantification of major trade-offs so that decision-makers and stakeholders can visualize impacts of different actions on different parties.
Although the integrated assessments employed in these case studies have limitations that should be addressed in further work, such assessments have a key role to play not only in quantifying trade-offs but also in identifying what is both desirable and feasible in highly complex systems. Integrated assessments, in other words, can help establish the outer limits within which agricultural research can reasonably be expected to contribute to improving and sustaining livelihoods in given situations.

Citation:
Thornton, P.K., R.B. Boone, K.A. Galvin, S.B. BurnSilver, M.M. Waithaka, J. Kuyiah, S. Karanja, E. Gonzalez-Estrada, and M. Herrero. Coping strategies in livestock-dependent households in East and Southern Africa: A synthesis of four case studies. Human Ecology. Vol. Online first (2007)

Download the paper: http://www.springerlink.com/content/75368853th35r755/

References:
Ellis, F. (2004). Occupational diversification in developing countries and the implications for agricultural policy. Programme of Advisory and Support Services to DFID (PASS) Project No. WB0207. Online at:
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/25/9/36562879.pdf

Folke, C., Carpenter, S., Elmqvist, T., Gunderson, L., Holling, C.S., Walker, B., Bengtsson, J., Berkes, F., Colding, J., Danell, K., Falkenmark, M., Gordon, L., Kasperson, R., Kautsky, N., Kinzig, A., Levin, S., Mäler, K.-G., Moberg, F., Ohlsson, L., Olsson, P., Ostrom, E., Reid, W., Rockström, J., Savenije, H., and Svedin, U. (2002). Resilience and sustainable development: building adaptive capacity in a world of transformation. Scientific background paper on resilience for the process of The World Summit on Sustainable Development on behalf of The Environmental Advisory Council to the Swedish Government. Ministry of the Environment, Stockholm, Sweden. Online at:
http://www.sou.gov.se/mvb/pdf/resiliens.pdf

Sayer, J. A., and Campbell, B. (2001). Research to integrate productivity enhancement, environmental protection, and human development. Conservation Ecology 5(2): 32. Online at:
http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol5/iss2/art32/

Walker, B., Holling, C. S., Carpenter, S. R., and Kinzig, A. (2004). Resilience, Adaptability and Transformability in Social-ecological Systems. Ecology and Science 9 (2): 5. Online at:
http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/iss2/art5/

Livestock biosciences for poverty alleviation: One more arrow in the quiver!

Posted on June 6, 2007 by ILRIComms

Proceedings of the 4th All Africa Conference on Animal Agriculture ‘The role of biotechnology in animal agriculture to address poverty in Africa’, now available for download

The theme of the 4th All Africa Conference on Animal Agriculture was ‘The role of biotechnology in animal agriculture to address poverty in Africa: Opportunities and challenges’. The conference, which was held in Arusha, Tanzania, in September 2005, was organized by the All Africa Society for Animal Production (AASAP) in association with the Tanzania Society for Animal Production (TSAP), and partnership with the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). The recently released proceedings contain over 50 papers by leading experts in biotechnology covering animal health, genetic diversity and improvement and animal feeds and nutrition. The technologies reported ranged from the rather conventional approaches to the more advanced molecular techniques.

ILRI’s director general, Carlos Seré, and ILRI’s director of biotechnology, Ed Rege, presented a paper on Agricultural biotechnology for poverty alleviation at the first plenary session. The paper highlights opportunities for livestock biotechnologies in the areas of animal health through new/improved vaccines and diagnostics, genetic improvement of livestock, conservation of indigenous breeds and genetic diversity, and improving the nutritional quality of feeds. They argue animal agriculture will continue to be of considerable importance for poverty alleviation in Africa for some time to come, and that appropriate applications of biosciences can increase the pace of Africa’s agricultural and economic development.

‘Economic development in Africa will, of necessity, have to be initially linked to agriculture (broadly defined to include crop, livestock, forestry and fish). Staple crops and livestock are most likely to promote economic growth in the continent. To date, public sector investment in biotechnology in Africa has led to few products.

‘However, similar to what is happening in Asia and Latin America, there is a great opportunity for Africa to mobilize science to create wealth for its people and achieve higher economic growth.

‘If a new technology is useful and the price is right, the spread is almost unstoppable. Clearly, biotechnology is not a substitute for other technologies, but is an additional arsenal which should be used as and when appropriate to increase the pace of agricultural development. It is simply another arrow in the quiver!’

Copies of this new publication will be made available at the Africa Agricultural Science Week and the 4th Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) General Assembly in Johannesburg on 10– 16 June 2007.

Download the book: https://cgspace.cgiar.org/bitstream/10568/2275/1/Role%20of%20biotechnology.pdf

New strategy for pro-poor dairy development in Assam

Posted on June 6, 2007 by ILRIComms

ILRI and partners recently unveiled a new action plan to help the poor in Assam improve their livelihoods through the dairy sector.

Assam is located in the far North-East corner of India and shares its borders with six Indian States and two countries. The majority of milk is produced by rural smallholders using indigenous cattle and buffalo, but productivity is low in comparison with other States in India. Further, most milk is marketed through traditional and informal channels, estimated at 97% of locally marketed milk, compared to some 80% nationally. In spite of these constraints, Assam displays strong production potential and inadequate milk supply, so there are many opportunities to grow the dairy sector and help the poor improve their livelihoods.

In 2005, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), was invited by the Directorate of Dairy Development (DDD) of the Government of Assam, to collaborate in a comprehensive study on the dairy sector in Assam to identify opportunities to boost the milk sector and improve the livelihoods of smallholder producers.

About Assam

Assam is situated in the far, North-East corner of India. The total geographical area of the State is 78,438 sq kms which accounts for about 2.4% of the country’s total geographical area. In 2001, the population of Assam stood at 26.64 million – representing 2.59% of the total population of India.

The percentage of poor in Assam is the highest among the seven sister States of the North East. Around 36.09% of the State’s population continues to live below the poverty line, a figure considerably above the national average of 26.1% (1999-2000). There is a rural-urban divide: four out of ten people in rural Assam are likely to be below the poverty line, while in urban Assam, the incidence is less than one in ten.

Cattle constitute the largest livestock group followed by goats, pigs and buffaloes. Livestock in Assam are mainly indigenous breeds but the average productivity is poor in comparison with other States of India. The production of milk in Assam in 2002-2003 was estimated at 773 million litres as against 750 million litres in 2001-2002 indicating a nominal increase of 3.06 per cent over.

Action plan presented to stakeholders
On Wednesday 30th May, ILRI and the DDD presented their findings and a draft action at a final stakeholders’ meeting in the Assam capital Guwahati convened by the Assam Minister for Animal Husbandry and Veterinary, the Hon. Khori Singh Enghti. The action plan is based on surveys of 1500 consumers, 600 traditional and formal market agents and 3000 dairy producers in eight districts of Assam. It also includes an analysis of the successes and failures in the formal sector in Assam and an analysis of the quality and safety of milk and dairy products in both the traditional and formal sectors. The data were gathered and analyzed in collaboration with local partners in Assam.

Assam Action Plan Highlights

Demand outstrips supply
The report found dairy production to be a feasible option for raising incomes and improving livelihood opportunities, particularly for the rural poor. According to Steve Staal, ILRI’s markets theme director, ‘Our study shows that there is a huge gap between demand and supply. To meet the demand, which is mostly for good quality raw milk, dairy interventions that address productivity, access to livestock services and markets, and improved milk quality in the traditional sector, would result in more income and more employment for rural smallholders.’

Improved productivity and increased production essential
Besides large market potential in rural Assam, the survey also found many farmers expressed a desire to become involved in increased marketed milk production, but low milk yields and lack of a basic marketing infrastructure were identified as major obstacles. The action plan highlights opportunities to increase farm-level production and productivity through improved animals such as cross-breeds, improved fodder and feed technology, and by providing access to livestock services. The action plan also incorporates actions to provide smallholder access to reliable markets to absorb more milk at remunerative prices. The government of Assam have already made efforts to bring smallholders into collective market mechanisms, but marketing of milk through the processed milk channel remains relatively insignificant and smallholders receive little remuneration.

Pro-poor interventions critical
The plan highlights that dairy systems in Assam may be too diverse to have a singular policy thrust. It states: ‘We need to recognize such diversities of the system and place them within pro-poor dairy intervention designs and enable poor households to take part in the process.’

According to the report, no dairy development is possible in Assam unless it addresses the problems faced by the traditional sector. Most of the milk consumed in Assam is ‘raw’ unpasteurized milk supplied by smallholders. The survey found that demand for pasteurised milk was low and its consumption was limited almost entirely to urban areas. Staal emphasised the need for an inclusive plan ‘Any development plan that focused mostly on pasteurised milk is unlikely to yield the desired results. The idea is not to have a parallel competitive system to beat the traditional sector but to strengthen the existing system and help build a blend of modern infrastructure and professionalism.’

Quality standards to be raised
The report also highlights the need to raise quality and hygiene standards. According to Delia Grace, an epidemiologist and food safety specialist at ILRI, ‘Most of the samples analysed did not meet general bacteriological quality standards causing a potential risk to human health. There is an urgent need to create awareness among farmers and distributors to address the problem.’ The report suggests taking immediate steps to provide training packages to milk farmers and distributors and to raise awareness among consumers that all ‘raw’ milk should be boiled before consumption – a practice that is generally followed in Assam.

Assam action plan soon ready for implementation
According to Iain Wright, ILRI’s representative for Asia ‘the report was well received by stakeholders and we are currently incorporating their comments. The final action plan will be released within a month.’

ILRI Assam Dairy Project Staff

John Vercoe Conference: Animal breeding for poverty alleviation

Posted on May 29, 2007 by ILRIComms

The John Vercoe Conference and seventh Peter Doherty Distinguished Lecture will take place at ILRI headquarters in Nairobi 8-9 November 2007.

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) Board of Trustees is pleased to announce the John Vercoe Conference and the seventh Peter Doherty Distinguished Lecture. The conference theme is ‘Animal breeding for poverty alleviation – harnessing new science for greater impact’.

The John Vercoe Conference will be inaugurated by the Kenyan Minister of Science and Technology, Hon. Noah Wekesa and thereafter, followed by the presentation of a keynote paper by Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Further topics include:

Case studies of breeding programs within developing countries (Christie Peacock, Farm Africa, UK)
Breeding program design issues for small-holders (Ed Rege, ILRI)
New opportunities for reproductive technologies in developing countries (Johan van Arendonk, Wageningen University, Netherlands)
New DNA-based technologies and their prospects for developing countries (Julius van der Werf, University of New England, Australia / Brian Kinghorn)
How animal breeding relates to other interventions to reduce poverty (Ade Freeman, ILRI)

The conference will be held at ILRI headquarters in Nairobi on 8-9 November 2007. For further information and to register for the conference, go to the John Vercoe Conference website at: https://www.ilri.org/johnvercoeconference

Pioneering bird flu research program launched today

Posted on May 14, 2007 by ILRIComms

A GBP3.9 million (USD7.8 million) study, launched today by the UK's Department for International Development (DFID) to develop better ways of controlling bird flu aims to help the world's poorest farmers tackle avian flu and safeguard their livelihoods.

The DFID-funded research programme will examine the best ways to control avian flu and also how to reduce the impact of the disease on poor peoples’ livelihoods. The programme focuses on Africa and Southeast Asia, with initial research to be conducted in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Mali and Nigeria. The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) will manage the research in Africa, while in Southeast Asia the research will be managed by the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the Royal Veterinary College and the University of California at Berkeley.

John McDermott, ILRI’s Deputy Director General for Research, says ‘In global avian influenza discussions there are many different perspectives. This project seeks to provide evidence on the impacts and control of avian influenza from the perspectives of developing country farmers, technical staff and policy makers, to allow them to effectively make decisions of importance to them.’

New Approach
The DFID-funded research programme marks a new approach as previous work has largely focused on eradicating Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) from poultry populations and preparing for a potential human pandemic.

Launching the programme today, the UK’s International Development Secretary, Hilary Benn, said: ‘As well as claiming lives, avian flu – and the measures taken to control it – is damaging the livelihoods of farmers in the developing world. It is important to investigate how best to protect them when avian flu strikes.

‘This pioneering research will help find ways of helping the poor while also ensuring appropriate control measures are followed so that farmers do not hide, slaughter or eat infected birds. The first results of the study are expected within a year and will be discussed with policy makers in Africa and Asia.’

The potential impact on agriculture of the continuing spread of HPAI and the fear of this developing into a human pandemic are very great. The World Bank recently estimated that a pandemic could reduce the world’s GDP by five per cent, with a higher proportional loss in developing countries. To date, HPAI infections have claimed more than 170 lives in 12 countries since 2003 and, in South East Asia, led to the culling of more than 140 million birds with a total estimated economic loss to the region of more than $10 billion.

Jeff Mariner, senior epidemiologist at ILRI, says, ‘Although the potential of HPAI to adapt to man and cause a global pandemic is the primary concern motivating much of the donor response to this disease in the world, human disease is as yet a rare event. Very few farming communities have actually experienced human cases. The primary concern of farmers today is the negative impact that repeated waves of poultry mortality due to HPAI have on their livelihoods. Understanding the impact of HPAI in poultry on peoples’ livelihoods will provide entry points to motivate and drive effective control programmes. Enhanced control of HPAI to reduce the risk of a human pandemic is only possible through win-win scenarios that address the present effects of HPAI.’

Further information:
Click here for the DFID press release

Click here for the IFPRI press release

Developing-country farmers to benefit from new foot-and-mouth disease ‘road map’

Posted on April 17, 2007 by ILRIComms

A major new report launched today charts a pathway towards the effective control of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in developing countries where the disease is a serious and growing threat.

The report, ‘Global Road Map for Improving the Tools to Control Foot-and-Mouth Disease in Endemic Settings’, launched today (17 April 2007) at the headquarters of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), in Rome, envisions ‘a world in which livestock-based livelihoods, enterprises and trade can flourish unimpeded by FMD’. The road map focuses on the outputs of a workshop held in Agra, India, in December 2006.

Efficacious vaccines, strategically deployed, have revolutionized control of many infectious human and animal diseases. For FMD, which severely constrains the welfare of millions of small-scale livestock farmers in the developing world, currently available vaccines do not meet many of the basic requirements necessary for sustainable control. FMD continues to be a persistent constraint to livestock production throughout the developing world. It can significantly reduce production of milk and meat and limits the ability of draft animals to work.

Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD): Quick Facts

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) affects cloven-hoofed animals and is one of the most contagious diseases of mammals, with great potential for causing severe economic loss. FMD is endemic in parts of Asia, Africa, the Middle East and South America.
Hosts: Principally cattle, domestic buffaloes, yaks, sheep, goats, domestic and wild pigs and wild ruminants.
Transmission: Direct or indirect contact; animate vectors (humans, etc.); inanimate vectors (vehicles, implements); airborne, especially in temperate zones (up to 60 km overland and 300 km by sea).
Sources: Incubating and clinically affected animals; breath, saliva, faeces, and urine; milk and semen; meat and by-products and carriers, particularly cattle and water buffalo; convalescent animals and exposed vaccinates (virus can persist for up to 30 months in cattle or longer in buffalo, 9 months in sheep).

Source: Excerpted from World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) Animal Diseases Data www.oie.int

According to John McDermott, deputy director general for research at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), ‘FMD is a major obstacle to productivity and market access in many of ILRI’s target regions, particularly South Asia, the Horn of Africa and southern Africa. It severely limits market opportunities for poor farmers and nations wishing to access more lucrative markets, both regionally and internationally.

‘FMD also can increase the vulnerability of small-scale farmers in mixed cropping systems where animal traction is important. For example, in Southeast Asia where rice is a staple, people are heavily reliant on water buffalo for ploughing. A FMD outbreak leaves the buffalo open to secondary infections, putting these highly valued animals out of action for a very long time.’

Brian Perry, who recently retired as senior scientist at ILRI and is now collaborating with ILRI on this and other projects, says, ‘There is an urgent and long overdue need to address the special research needs of poor people in endemic FMD settings. Current research on vaccines and associated tools for the control of FMD is driven more by the needs of relatively rich FMD-free countries which are dealing with and eliminating incursions of the disease, rather than by the needs of relatively poor FMD-endemic countries which are interested in longer-term management and control of the disease.’

In early 2006, Perry, ‘navigator’ of the FMD ‘Roadmap’ process, approached the Wellcome Trust (UK) to seek support for an initiative to tackle this need. Following submission of a joint proposal from ILRI and the UK’s Institute for Animal Health (IAH), the Wellcome Trust (UK) agreed to provide partial funding and, with the support of additional donors—notably the European Union—planning was begun to organize the meeting that became the launch pad of the ‘Global Road Map for Improving the Tools to Control Foot and Mouth Disease in Endemic Settings’.

‘We decided at an early stage that the road map workshop should be held in an FMD-endemic country’, says Keith Sones, workshop facilitator and co-editor of the report. ‘India, with its impressive and ambitious ongoing program to control FMD, was an obvious choice. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) was very supportive and agreed to host the workshop in Agra.’

According to VK Taneja, deputy director general of animal scrence at ICAR, ‘Livestock production in India is growing faster than arable agriculture. The value of output from the livestock sector has risen over the years and is now 26% of the total value of output from agriculture. It is predicted that livestock will contribute more than half of the total agricultural output in the next 25–30 years.’

‘One of the biggest impediments to growth of the livestock sector is the large-scale prevalence of FMD’, says Taneja. ‘In most Asian countries, FMD is endemic and severely limits the region’s ability to participate in international trade. Developmental strategies for control and eradication of FMD—including improving existing conventional vaccines and diagnostics for their quality and efficacy—will pave the way for the improved growth and productivity of livestock, especially in small-farm production systems, and for ensuring their participation and access to global markets.’

While the economic losses associated with major outbreaks of FMD in industrial countries, notably in Europe in 2001, grabbed world headlines, the disease continues to cause enormous, recurrent losses across large swathes of Asia, Africa, the Middle East and South America.

‘The direct losses alone due to FMD in India are estimated to be more than USD4.5 billion per year; indirect production losses could be much more’, says Dr R Venkataramanan, principal scientist at the Indian Veterinary Research Institute, in Bangalore.

‘The Roadmap report recognizes that vaccines currently available for the control of FMD are not ideal for use in many developing countries’, says Perry. ‘To remain effective they must be kept under constant refrigeration, so the protection they offer is better suited to the needs of FMD-free countries rather than countries where the disease is a constant and daily threat. We realize that it will take considerable time to develop and make available new improved vaccines suitable for developing- country conditions. But in the meantime much can be done with current vaccines and diagnostics, especially if their use is complemented with sound epidemiological and economic decision-support tools to guide and facilitate their effective use.’

Alexander Müller, FAO Assistant Director-General, declares that ‘FAO is ready to support this important initiative, which is expected to provide some of the breakthroughs needed for use in the most affected areas, and which will support the efforts of FAO with the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) to reduce FMD risk by promoting progressive control of FMD at all levels. The initiative from the research community is strongly needed and we are happy to play our role in launching this initiative and facilitating transfer of effective new approaches.’

Work undertaken after the Agra workshop ensured that research proposals were developed for funding high-priority areas identified during the workshop. Lead writers facilitated development of concept notes to be submitted to donor agencies in the fields of immunology, vaccine design and epidemiological and economic tools. In addition, some regional concept notes were developed focussing on southern Africa, South and Southeast Asia and South America. These draft concept notes are included in the road map report and provide guidance on further development of the tools for FMD control. Using the products of the road map process, ILRI and partners are now developing a project proposal that, once funded, will move the world closer to the vision of ‘a world in which livestock-based livelihoods, enterprises and trade can flourish unimpeded by FMD’

Participants of the Global Road Map for Improving the Tools to Control Foot-and-Mouth Disease in
Endemic Settings workshop held at Agra, India, 29 November – 1 December 2006

Download the FMD Road Map report

Citation: Perry BD and Sones KR (eds). 2007. Global road map for improving the tools to control foot-and-mouth disease in endemic settings. Report of a workshop held at Agra, India, 29 November–1 December 2006, and subsequent road map outputs. ILRI (International Livestock Research Institute), Nairobi, Kenya. pp. 88

Controlling bird flu in Indonesia through local knowledge

Posted on April 2, 2007 by ILRIComms

‘Participatory epidemiology’ – an approach to controlling livestock diseases pioneered by ILRI’s Jeff Mariner and colleague Christine Jost – is being used to improve control of bird flu in Indonesia.

Indonesia has the worst bird flu problem in the world. Experts fear that the country provides the perfect setting for the highly pathogenic form of avian influenza, H5N1, to evolve into a form easily passed among humans, touching off a global pandemic. Through an approach known as ‘participatory epidemiology’, teams of veterinarians are tapping into local knowledge of where and when bird flu outbreaks are occurring and then enlisting villagers’ cooperation in control efforts.

The H5N1 virus is endemic among poultry throughout much of Indonesia. ‘You simply couldn’t get more virus in the environment,’ says Jeffrey Mariner, a veterinarian at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), in Nairobi, who is helping train surveillance teams under the auspices of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.

To establish a systematic control program, officials will have to track where and when outbreaks of bird flu are occurring, especially among the estimated 300 million chickens kept in backyards by 60% of all Indonesian households. That’s the challenge for a new approach called ‘participatory epidemiology’ pioneered by Jeff Mariner and his colleague Christine Jost, an assistant professor at Tufts University, in Massachusetts. By talking to villagers and about disease incidences and symptoms, researchers can gather valuable epidemiological data on how disease is spreading and kept in circulation, which in turn informs control strategies. Mariner and Jost pioneered participatory epidemiology to help control rinderpest in Africa. This approach enabled authorities in Sudan to target vaccination programs that eradicated rinderpest from the country. Although participatory approach has never been tried for avian influenza and has never been tried on such a large scale for any disease, international and Indonesian animal health officials believe that this approach will be a key component for bringing the H5N1 crisis under control, both in Indonesia and elsewhere in the developing world.

Early in 2006, with USD1.5 million in funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), a pilot program was established in 12 districts in Java comprising two teams of publicly funded vets specializing in either participatory disease surveillance or participatory disease response. The teams ‘turned up much more avian influenza than anyone expected,’ Mariner says. ‘Poultry populations were fully saturated with the disease.’

Those alarming results persuaded Indonesian authorities and international experts to push for a rapid expansion of participatory epidemiology. Even though coverage of the country is still fairly limited, the data being accumulated are providing clues to what keeps the virus in circulation.

Participatory response is an important part of the program. Mariner says that until recently the standard response was for government vets to indiscriminately cull all poultry around the villages where infected birds were found and then vaccinate widely. This mass culling, known as ‘stamping out’, causes resentment among smallholders, who may correctly believe that their birds have not been exposed to the virus. Delays in compensation exacerbate the ill feelings. The participatory approach aims to involve villagers in decisions—ideally, to cull all poultry directly exposed to infected birds, with immediate compensation, and then vaccinate other birds in the vicinity. Mariner says that even smallholders can be convinced of the need to cull birds that have been directly exposed to H5N1-infected chickens.

At the same time that Indonesia is verifying the effectiveness of participatory epidemiology, the country, with FAO support and financing from the United States, Australia and Japan, is planning to extend the program to all of Java and Bali and parts of Sumatra by next May.

This article was taken from a longer article published in Science on 5 January 2007 titled: Indonesia Taps Village Wisdom to Fight Bird Flu.

Download article (subscription required): http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/315/5808/30

Integrating livestock and water management

Posted on March 22, 2007 by ILRIComms

Livestock are often neglected in water management policies, yet demand for livestock products is predicted to soar, placing even greater pressure on scarce water supplies. A new brief outlines strategies and opportunities to double livestock water productivity.

Water management policies tend to focus on water productivity in crop production and industrial and domestic use. Livestock are given little attention. A new brief entitled ‘Integrating livestock and water management to maximize benefits’, highlights the important contributions livestock make to livelihoods, particularly in developing countries, and the need for livestock to be fully considered in water management policies in order to maximize benefits.

Demand for livestock products are predicted to double over the next twenty years and this will place greater pressure on already scarce water supplies. Livestock contribute to the livelihoods of at least 70% of the world’s rural poor, providing many benefits including food, fuel, fertilizer and transportation. According to ILRI scientist Don Peden, ‘integrating livestock and water could bring big benefits, but it is receiving little attention in the livestock and water sectors.’

Livestock water productivity
Livestock water productivity is the amount of water depleted or diverted to produce livestock and livestock products and services. Livestock require a great deal of water – not for drinking – but for their feed. Livestock water productivity can be increased by identifying areas where water efficiency gains can be made to free up scarce water for other uses.

Many people in industrial countries eat more food than is necessary and healthy.
‘Health experts and environmentalists in industrial countries are calling for people to reduce their consumption of meat and dairy products. In the developing world, nutritionally deprived people could benefit from consumption of more animal products’ says Peden.

‘The challenge is to enable poor livestock keepers to get more from their animals, while using less water and reducing degradation of land and water resources.’ The convergence of high livestock densities and poverty occurs mostly in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. To help the greatest number of livestock-dependent rural poor, these two regions would therefore be priority regions for integrating livestock and water development.

Distribution of poor livestock keepers (no.km3)

https://www.ilri.org/Link/Publications/Publications/Theme%201/Kruska%20et%20al%20Livestock%20systems%20Ag%20systems.pdf

Strategies for improving livestock water productivity

The brief outlines four strategies for improving livestock water productivity, to reduce the amount of water used in livestock production and to increase the benefits from livestock per unit of water used. The authors argue that by taking a balanced site-specific approach, that combines all four strategies, it should be possible to at least double livestock water productivity.

Strategic sourcing of animal feeds – Reducing the amount of water depleted to produce animal feed may be one of the most effective ways to improve water productivity globally. Three basic ways of accomplishing this are (i) promoting non-grain food sources with high water productivity, (ii) use of crop residues and by-products as feed, and (iii) practices that encourage more efficient grazing.
Enhancing animal productivity and reducing herd sizes – In much of the developing world livestock productivity is less than 50% of genetic potential. Milk production is low – often less than two litres per cow per day – as opposed to 15 litres or more. Promoting better health, genetics, nutrition and animal husbandry practices would enable livestock keepers to get more from fewer animals.
Reducing negative environmental impacts – Loss of vegetation due to overgrazing results in increased soil erosion, downslope sedimentation and reduced water infiltration. Research indicates that low to moderate grazing pressure has little negative impact on hydrology. Managing animals in ways that reduce land and water degradation, for example, by restricting animal access to certain areas and more integrated management of grazing land will help to reduce negative environmental effects.
Strategic provision of drinking water – The amount, quality and location of livestock drinking water can have a big impact on livestock water productivity. Water deprivation reduces feed intake and can greatly lower milk production. Providing adequate quality drinking water – strategically placed – enables animals to reach otherwise inaccessible grazing areas, keeps them from contaminating domestic water sources, and enhances production of meat and milk. Given the high value of animals, particularly to poor households, and the relatively small amount of water animals drink, strategic provision of drinking water is a good investment.

The authors argue that the livestock water productivity opportunities identified in the brief can only be realized if livestock and water are fully integrated and location-specific adjustments are made, for example, at the community level and integration of pasture management and water users associations.

Vaccine agency to reduce loss of human and animal life in developing countries is launched

Posted on March 12, 2007 by ILRIComms

The Global Alliance for Livestock Veterinary Medicine (GALVmed) recently unveiled animal health projects it will tackle over the next ten years.

GALVmed announced progress on vaccine and treatments for Newcastle disease in poultry and East Coast fever and Rift Valley fever in cattle at its international launch at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), in Nairobi, on Friday 9 March 2007. This marked the beginning of a 10-year program aimed at creating sustainable solutions to the loss of human and animal life caused by livestock diseases, which threaten 600 million of the poorest people in developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

GALVmed, a non-profit organization funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID), is partnering with private and public-sector organizations around the world. It has identified 13 livestock diseases as key targets for development of livestock vaccines and animal health diagnostics and medicines. Founder members of the agency include the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), FARM-Africa, Pfizer, Intervet and Merial. GALVmed exists to broker partnerships among pharmaceutical companies and other public and private-sector organizations to develop accessible and affordable animal vaccines for the whole world’s poorest farmers.

Zoonotic diseases, which are transmitted between animals and humans, mainly afflict the poorest households, as evidenced by the recent outbreak of Rift Valley fever in livestock in Kenya, which killed 150 people. Brian Perry, a senior scientist at ILRI, warns that ‘Today, combating livestock diseases is everybody’s business – tropical animal diseases are no longer “just a local problem”. For example, there is a threat that diseases like Rift Valley fever will follow bluetongue into Europe.’

GALVmed’s chief executive Steve Sloan explains that ‘Every year, poor farmers worldwide lose an average of a quarter and in some cases half, of their herds and flocks to preventable disease. This devastates developing economies. Many of these are zoonotic and so also cause human deaths.

Livestock play a critical role in helping people escape poverty. Livestock disease is one of the greatest barriers to development for poor livestock keepers. Flocks and herds die every year from diseases for which vaccine simply do not exist or are beyond the reach of the poor. John McDermott, ILRI’s deputy director general for research says, ‘ILRI scientists and partners have done ground breaking science to develop an experimental vaccines to protect cattle against East Coast fever. The next steps are to conduct trials to facilitate the delivery of this vaccine to the farmers. To do that, we need specialist partners who will test, manufacture and market the vaccine and make it accessible and affordable to the thousands of livestock keepers afflicted by this cattle killing disease.

Click here for the GALVmed News release.

To find out more about GALVmed visit the website
www.galvmed.org

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