ILRI wins two top awards

Posted on February 16, 2006 by ILRIComms

ILRI vaccine developers won an award for Outstanding Scientific Article. Another ILRI team conducting research on savannah ecosystems shared an award for their innovative collaboration with Maasai landowners in Kenya.

Scientific Recognition

Each year, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) recognizes the scientific contributions of the 15 agricultural research centres it supports through its Science Awards, presented at its Annual General Meeting (AGM), held each year in December.

At the CGIAR’s AGM held in Washington DC at the end of last year, scientists from ILRI and The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) picked up the award for ‘Outstanding Scientific Article’ for their paper, published in the top scientific journal Science, ‘Genome Sequence of Theileria parva: a Bovine Pathogen that Transforms Lymphocytes’. The team, led by Malcolm Gardner of TIGR, received a cash prize of US$10,000, which is being donated to fund travel for staff and students to attend conferences in this area.

The paper’s second author, ILRI scientist Richard Bishop, said: “We are delighted to receive this award. Our multi-partner collaboration and recent discoveries illustrate that African science is forging ahead – we are collaborating with world-class players and producing world-class science right here in Africa, for Africa.”

Pictured above from left to right: ILRI’s Director of Research, John McDermott, and TIGR scientist (and former ILRI staff member) Vish Nene, with the Award for ‘Outstanding Scientific Paper’. Looking on is ILRI’s Director General Carlos Seré and Bruce Scott, ILRI Director, Partnership and Communications.

Download TIGR/ILRI Press Release

Innovative Collaboration with Civil Society

The CGIAR also recognizes the contributions of innovative collaborations between CGIAR-supported centres and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) through its ‘Innovation Marketplace Awards’. This year, 46 CSOs were invited to participate at the CGIAR Innovation Marketplace to showcase their collaborative work and share experiences.

ILRI’s collaboration with the Kitengela Ilparakuo Landowners Association (KILA) was one of four collaborations to win a Judges’ Award with a cash prize of US$30,000, to use for further collaborative work. ILRI has been collaborating with the Maasai of Kitengela Plains, located next to Nairobi National Park, in Kenya, since 2002. They have devised means to ensure that people, livestock and wildlife can live in harmony and have lobbied government to reduce fencing to allow the annual migration of wildlife though the Kitengela Plains, thus helping to prevent conflicts between wildlife and people and their livestock. Other collaborators of the program are Kenya Wildlife Service, Friends of Nairobi National Park, The Wildlife Foundation and Kajiado County Council.

The prize award was collected by ILRI’s CSO representative Ogeli Ole Makui and ILRI’s Mohammed Said. Makui said: “This award means so much to us. Our major challenge is to move forward and continue with the collaboration to help the community move forward. The Landowners Association will be using the prize money to fund further collaborative work.

Pictured above, from left to right: CGIAR Chair and Vice President of the World Bank Kathy Siena, the Program Officer of the Kitengela Land Lease Program, Ogeli Ole Makui and ILRI scientist Mohammed Said.

Download the award-winning poster

ILRI Awards

Dr Carlos Seré , ILRI’s Director General, said: “ILRI’s work is frequently recognized at the CGIAR’s annual awards. Each year the bar is raised and this year was no exception. Competition was tough with a very high standard of entries in all categories. We wish to extend our congratulations to the winners from our sister centres and are delighted that ILRI has won two of the top awards this year. This recognizes our commitment and contributions to both science and society.”

Pictured above from left: ILRI Directors Carlos Seré and Bruce Scott and the President of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz at the CGIAR exhibit booth at the AGM in December 2006 in Washington, DC.

Killing drought hits the Horn of Africa

Posted on February 1, 2006 by ILRIComms

The worst drought in 22 years is ravaging Kenya and its neighbours, killing livestock and livestock livelihoods.

In what some are calling Kenya’s worst drought in 22 years, nomads are herding their livestock into areas normally off limits to cattle, sheep and goats, despite their great popularity in this country, where landless urban farmers, rural smallholders, and ministers of parliament alike keep ruminant animals. Desperate to save their animals and with no money to buy feed, pastoralists are illegally grazing their animals on the grasslands of some national parks and in the forests around Mt. Kenya, popular tourist destinations that generally deny access to livestock herders and their stock. At the same time, there are reports of elephants leaving their game sanctuaries to search for water and food near human settlements, destroying crops and killing at least two people.

In the cities, herdsmen are sleeping at night under trees with their animals. In the mornings, they lead their emaciated animals to wherever there is a bit of green: along roadsides, in the middle of roundabouts, at the entrance to the city’s racecourse, and even to the lawns of the presidential mansion, where herdsman appeared with about 60 cows on New Year’s Day. While presidential guards rebuffed the interlopers (who then walked their cattle further, to a park in the city centre), President Mwai Kibaki declared the crisis a national disaster, saying that food shortages would affect some 2.5 million Kenyans. Three weeks later, the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (IRCS) reported that the countries of the Horn were in the grip of a famine, with 11 million people facing serious food shortages due to drought and conflicts. Food shortages are particularly severe in Somalia, Djibouti, southeastern Ethiopia and eastern Kenya. Livestock deaths and crop failures, says the IRCS report, have led to famine, with about 40 human deaths reported.

The drought is the result of successive seasons of failed rains. These several seasonal failures have left pastoralists living in northern Kenya and other remote areas with few survival strategies left to cope with the crisis. It is imperative that they are supported in keeping their core livestock assets alive through the drought. (Selling the starving animals is not an option: cattle that fetched 20,000 Kenya shillings [US$280] normally are now being sold for less than a quarter of that.)

Drought is just one cause of Africa’s current food crisis. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations cites drought as the main problem in just 12 of the 27 African countries needing urgent food assistance today. A new report from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), which, like the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), is a Future Harvest Centre of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), outlines the other critical issues behind Africa’s current hunger. These include rural underinvestment, conflicts, AIDs, population growth and poor soils.

Click here to read the 31 January BBC article: Africa's hunger: A systemic crisis. For a copy of the report, visit IFPRI’s website: www.ifpri.org.

New outbreak of fatal Rift Valley fever in the Horn of Africa

Posted on January 26, 2006 by ILRIComms

Rift Valley fever is a viral disease of people and ruminant animals transmitted by mosquitoes. Epidemics frequently present as extensive abortion storms in small ruminants and cattle combined with heavy mortality in young animals. In people, the disease is most often a febrile illness without serious consequences. In a low percentage of human cases (about 1% or less), hemorrhagic complications can arise. Blindness also occasionally results. 118 deaths have been confirmed since the outbreak in November 2006 in the North-eastern province and coastal region of Kenya.

The disease is transmitted by the bite of infected mosquitoes or heavy exposure to aerosols in situations such as the slaughtering of infected animals. Outbreaks of the disease are associated with changes in local water resource management or periods of heavy rainfall. Examples have been the construction of new dams or El Nino rain events such as the one in East Africa in 1997-98 when there was a major outbreak of Rift Valley fever in Kenya and Somalia. The virus has been shown to over-winter in infected mosquito eggs. At the onset of the rains, infected mosquitoes transmit the disease to suitable amplifying hosts such as small ruminants. If vector densities are sufficiently high due to favourable environmental conditions, this starts a cascade-like recrudescence of the virus in the host and vector populations, leading to an epidemic.

Severe human cases, although an infrequent outcome of infection, are often the event that triggers recognition that an epidemic is under way. There is need to develop early warning systems and to validate prevention and control strategies that can mitigate the evolution of outbreaks. Rift Valley fever causes serious economic losses in livestock particularly in cattle and sheep, although goats, camels, Asian water buffalo and wild antelopes may be vulnerable.

Key research questions

A number of important research questions related to Rift Valley fever and its impact remain unanswered and worthy of further research. These include the following:

•  What is the economic impact of an RVF outbreak, particularly in terms of distribution, livelihoods, international trade, public health, and other macro-level factors? How does the disease affect unrelated sectors (e.g., tourism)?
•  How has the disease broadly affected trade patterns in livestock products from the horn of Africa and what are potential future impacts? How can these be mitigated?
•  How effective are current vaccines in their ability to prevent disease and how frequent are side effects? There are two types of vaccines currently in use, both of which have serious disadvantages. For human use, a ‘killed vaccine’consists of formalin-inactivated virus for restricted use.   It requires several doses and annual revaccination. It is not approved for general distribution and is used only for laboratory workers and other specialized groups. A live, attenuated vaccine is approved for use in livestock. It induces a solid, life-long immunity but may cause abortions if administered to pregnant animals.
•  What is the epidemiological impact and cost-effectiveness of alternative types of vaccination and movement control strategies? How can these tools be best used in the face of outbreaks like the one we are experiencing now?
•  Can diagnostic tests for the disease be improved to make them more ‘user-friendly’ for field workers and remote laboratories? Is it possible to develop good diagnostic tests to distinguish between active and past infections, and to distinguish previously exposed animals from vaccinated animals?
•  How can we enhance decision-making and promote the application of risk-based standards to ensure safe international trade of livestock products and scientifically sound trade restrictions?

The Nairobi-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) is actively seeking to become engaged in two areas.

In diagnostics, ILRI recently held discussions with the Kenya’s Department of Veterinary Services and South Africa’s Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute (OVI). OVI have developed a field-based test to diagnose RVF infection in cattle. This test requires only the application of a small blood sample to the device with a result obtained in about three minutes. Such a test has advantages over a laboratory-based test, in terms of speed of diagnosis and no need for electricity or other equipment. Although the test has profed successful in the laboratory, it has yet to undergo extensive testing in the field to ensure that it is sufficiently accurate. It is envisaged that ILRI will be involved in this testing, using samples from the current outbreak.

On another front, ILRI is pursuing the possibility of working with a Walter Reed Project (WRP) and the US-based Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to support their ongoing efforts to understand and control this present outbreak of Rift Valley Fever. Internal discussions within ILRI highlight three key areas in which ILRI could contribute in this process:

• Sensitise key stakeholders, particularly in government of the epidemiological and economic magnitude and impact of the current outbreak in Kenya.
• Initiate a process to identify appropriate veterinary control strategies to reduce both animal and human incidence of the disease
• Take advantage of the current situation to collect key epidemiological and economic data to guide further research and improve risk mitigation tools

ILRI is in discussions with the WRP-CDC teams to define roles specific for ILRI in the areas of assessing the socio-economic impacts of the disease, participatory epidemiology and surveillance, and the interface between livestock and public health. ILRI aims to help WRP-CDC in their short-run emergency response efforts as well as to use this current outbreak to help design decision-support tools to better manage future occurrences of Rift Valley Fever.

CDC expert updates Kenya on Avian Influenza

Posted on November 28, 2005 by ILRIComms

Kenyan CDC expert Dr Kariuki Njenga tells of Kenya's preparedness for bird flu. "The best way to manage the threat is to control the disease at its source – in birds."

Dr Kariuki Njenga, a Kenyan expert working with the International Emerging Infections Programme in the Kenya office of the US Center for Diseases Control (CDC), delivered a seminar on avian influenza to staff of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) at their Nairobi headquarters on Thursday, 25 November 2005.

Dr Njenga said that the influenza viruses are some of the most intriguing and elusive in the world. Special characteristics of the highly pathogenic avian flu virus strain known as H5N1 increase the likelihood that there will be increased emergence of chimeric (new) viruses, one or more of which could cross over to humans and be transmitted from human to human and cause a flu pandemic.

Increased associations between animals and people, Dr Njenga said, especially in Southeast Asia, is providing a conduit for the avian influenza virus to come into contact with people as they handle dead or dying infected birds. Most of the 122 human cases of the disease, with 62 deaths, so far reported to the World Health Organization have occurred on backyard farms where poultry are kept.

‘Our main concern right now in Kenya and other countries in Africa along the migratory bird flyways’, said Dr Njenga, ‘are backyard chicken farmers’. More than three-quarters of Kenyans are rural farmers and it is estimated that more than 90 percent of them keep chickens. The fear is that wild birds infected with the deadly H5N1 virus strain now migrating to Kenya for the European winter might come in contact with domestic water birds, such as ducks, which then might contact free-scavenging chickens kept by poor rural people, and so the virus could be passed from birds to people. If this happens, the country would have to act within 21 days to contain the infection to prevent the outbreak spreading wide.

ILRI and CDC staff are part of a national task force that has been assembled in Kenya to deal with bird flu. This task force is providing early warning of bird die-offs and strengthening surveillance nationwide, developing a communications network and stock-piling anti-virals so that these are on handle to contain any outbreak. There is no effective vaccine to prevent a pandemic caused by the H5N1 flu strain.

The task force is instructing Kenyans to note any sick or dead birds. They should report these to veterinary or government authorities or they may collect dead birds in plastic bags, using plastic bags to protect their hands as they do so, and take them to their local veterinary officer.

Community animal health services beat disease and poverty in Ghibe Valley, Ethiopia

Posted on November 9, 2005 by ILRIComms

Click on the title above for the story and view the accompanying slideshow on the right.

Sleeping sickness transmitted by Africa’s tsetse flies is arguably the major livestock disease and one of the major constraints to crop production across the fertile lowlands of Ethiopia. This wasting disease maims and kills dairy cows that provide households with regular income, food for children and draft oxen that allow farmers to open up and work the land. The nearest animal health facilities are far from the Ghibe Valley, in southwestern Ethiopia, where the disease has been endemic, and cannot provide the communities that live there with veterinary services when their animals get sick. This vast and fertile land, once held hostage to this disease, has ‘come back’, with crop production and animal husbandry intensified by control of animal sleeping sickness.

Twenty years of work by ILRI in the region, which started as a research project, has recently been transformed into community-led livestock disease control. A three-year ILRI project funded by COMART, a private Canadian foundation, in the Ghibe Valley has resulted in the formation of animal health ‘cooperatives’. Four communities have developed their own animal health services. Members contribute money to a revolving fund used to buy veterinary drugs to control animal sleeping sickness. ILRI and the Wereda Bureau of Agriculture have been helping the new cooperatives prepare work plans as well as to buy and apply the drugs. The scheme is highly successful. Hundreds of farmers line up every month to pay for the treatments, the drugs demonstrably improve the health of their livestock, and neighbouring communities are asking for support to set up similar services in their areas. A network that formed early among the participating communities and cooperatives allows stakeholders in the project to learn from each other quickly. This farmer-to-farmer knowledge transfer is now speeding the scaling out of these community-based schemes to control livestock disease.

Click here for all images and related captions on the Ghibe slideshow.

Kenya Government follows up the ILRI-Kenya poverty mapping book Volume I with Volume II, launched this week in Nairobi

Posted on November 2, 2005 by ILRIComms

Analysis of the distribution of welfare through poverty maps has become an important tool for designing poverty interventions in Kenya. In 2003, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), in collaboration with Kenya’s Central Bureau of Statistics and other partners, launched the first comprehensive map-based view of poverty in Kenya (Volume1). Building on investments made by the Kenya Government in census, household surveys and geographic information, ILRI provided leadership and technical assistance in developing these poverty maps. The maps and figures in Volume I have been used by development partners and local governments to target and allocate resources in a pro-poor manner. New estimates of poverty and inequality at the constituency level—Geographic Dimensions of Well-being in Kenya: Who and Where are the Poor? A Constituency Level Profile. Volume II—were launched this week, 1 November 2005, in Nairobi.

This report, which was prepared by Kenya’s Central Bureau of Statistics in collaboration with the World Bank, Swedish International Development Agency and Society for International Development, applies a similar methodology to that used in Volume 1 to compute poverty and inequality for urban, rural and key socio-economic groups based on constituency-level data. The report also highlights how the results can be used for critical policy interventions, more specifically the Constituency Development Fund.

Details about this new volume can be obtained from the website of the Central Bureau of Statistics: www.cbs.go.ke

Click for news clippings about the book.

Daily Nation

The great divide:Kenya’s richest and poorest areas

Big variation in the levels of poverty

Poverty funds may be aiding the well-to-do

Education the key to a better life, says report

Wajir worst hit district in North-Eastern province

Sh150m grant used in fight against poverty

ILRI and WHO agree to work together more closely for better human health

Posted on November 1, 2005 by ILRIComms

ILRI and WHO sign a memorandum of understanding to promote human health and the control of zoonotic diseases.

In September 2005, a memorandum of understanding was signed between the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the World Health Organization (WHO). The agreement was signed by executives from both organizations in recognition of the need to better understand the links between livestock keeping and the health and general well-being of poor people in poor countries.

This agreement makes possible more effective collaboration and coordination between ILRI and WHO on human health and the control of diseases transmitted between animals and people (zoonoses) and associated with livestock and livestock products.

The agreement facilitates collective action on issues of concern to both organizations. WHO is involved in the surveillance and response to health problems of its member countries while ILRI obtains evidence on the impact of zoonotic diseases on the health and livelihood of poor people.

“We want to make sure that our research activities are integrated with the surveillance and control needs at the international level. Otherwise, why do research if there is no demand for it?", says Dr. Lee Willingham, a research scientist on parasitic zoonoses at ILRI.

The general objective of this agreement is to maximize synergies in the work of the two organizations in the following areas.

Exchange of information on technical areas of common interest to achieve complementarity and coordination between relevant activities and programmes.
Development of joint activities to address issues of mutual interest that are designed to foster and promote a greater capacity for research and technology application in developing countries and to facilitate the building and consolidation of global partnerships in the scientific community. The joint projects will be supported through special supplemental project proposals and may involve secondment of staff from one organization to the other or other appropriate administrative arrangements.
Promotion of synergies and elaboration of collaborative programs in areas where the two organizations can best employ their comparative advantages.

Electronic version of important poverty mapping book for Uganda available here

Posted on November 1, 2005 by ILRIComms

An electronic version of an important book, Where are the Poor? Mapping Patterns of Well-Being in Uganda, is now available.

Uganda has some of the poorest people in the world. For the first time, the question Where are the poor in Uganda? can be answered, as a result of sophisticated poverty maps developed by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). These maps provide facts and figures on poverty and inequality by region, district and county, highlighting where the poorest are located and estimating the numbers of poor and levels of poverty. These maps are important because they can be used to ensure that resources are targeted at those most in need.

If you are interested in viewing the entire electronic version of the book, click open:

Where are the Poor? Mapping Patterns of Well-Being in Uganda (23.09MB; will take 20 minutes or more to download on a 28.8kbps/dial-up connection)

If you are interested in viewing this book by chapter, go to:

To view the maps from the Atlas of Estimated Measures of Poverty Below the Regional Level: 1992 Poverty Maps, go to:

To view the maps from the Atlas of Estimated Measures of Poverty Below the Regional Level: 1999 Poverty Maps and the Change in Poverty from 1992 to 1999, go to:

Poverty pathways to be mapped across Kenya

Posted on June 28, 2005 by ILRIComms

The Kenya Government on 23 June 2005 announced that it has enlisted the Nairobi-headquartered International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) to undertake an ambitious study investigating how, when and why Kenyan households move into and out of poverty. A deeper understanding of poverty dynamics can help developing countries better target and tailor pro-poor poverty interventions. ILRI has previously undertaken two similar studies on ‘Pathways out of Poverty and the Role of Livestock’, one in western Kenya and the other in Peru. These were undertaken in collaboration with the Pro-poor Livestock Policy Initiative of the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations and Dr. Anirudh Krishna of Duke University, in the USA, who developed the participatory methods used in the study for similar research he first conducted in India. Remarkably, members of poor communities in India, Kenya and Peru all site the same factors that force households into poverty or help people climb out of poverty: loss or acquisition of livestock is, respectively, key to both. The new study in Kenya will be conducted across the whole country and will include all three of the country’s major livestock systems: pastoral, agro-pastoral and mixed crop-and-livestock production. The information on poverty will be collected in participatory ways and will be coupled with results of Kenya’s formal Welfare Monitoring Survey undertaken by the Ministry of Planning, ILRI’s partner in this new initiative, along with the Ministry of Agriculture. The breadth of the information obtained will allow scientists to answer a wide range of questions about poverty. The better understanding of poverty dynamics gained will help government policymakers and donor agencies better target and tailor pro-poor poverty interventions in this and other developing countries. The Kenya Government has awarded ILRI US$250,000 to undertake this study. 2004 Western Kenya Study: This study revealed that poor families move through six stages of progress out of poverty – from being able to secure food (stage one) to purchasing a sheep or goat (stage six). Fourteen stages were identified and these stages highlight the relative importance of livestock to the poor. The main findings are summarised in an ILRI Top Story. Click here to link to From Poor to Well-Off: Livestock can make a difference. Deep-seated customs can play a significant role in a family's descent into poverty and were identified as such by individuals surveyed. Raising awareness of the crippling effects of these customs, through a media campaign, could help get communities talking about the problems, and this could lead groups to actively seek solutions. The main findings are summarised in an ILRI Top Story. Click here to link to Funerals, Thefts and Bride Price: Livestock Loss Leads to Poverty. Click here to link to the full report Pathways out of Poverty in Western Kenya and the Role of Livestock. 2005 Peru Study: This study found that, overall, the number of households in poverty declined by 19% over 25 years in the 40 Andean communities studied. However, it also found that while some households escaped poverty, other households in the same communities fell into poverty and became poor. In addition to helping households escape poverty, stopping or at least controlling descents is essential to reducing poverty. The hole at the bottom must be plugged before there is any chance of filling the bucket. Else, households will continue slipping into poverty even as other households escape. Diversification of income sources – from livestock, crops and non-agricultural sources – are positively and strongly related to escapes from poverty. Market access, gains from small businesses, and community organizations are also positively and significantly associated with escaping poverty. On the other hand, health, land division, and social expenses (on marriages and funerals) tend to perpetuate poverty. Source: Excerpted from the draft working paper: The Hole at the Bottom of the Bucket: Household Poverty Dynamics in Forty Communities of the Peruvian Andes, Anirudh Krishna, Patti Kristjanson, Judith Kuan, Gustavo Quilca, Maren Radeny, and Alicia Sanchez-Urrelo

Biosciences for development

Posted on June 14, 2005 by ILRIComms

Today the spotlight is on European partners in livestock biosciences for development.
European donors and research institutions working in partnership with ILRI and other CGIAR Centres to speed up agricultural development in poor countries will be highlighted at a breakfast meeting at the 2005 World Bank Sustainable Development European Forum entitled ‘Managing Ecosystems and Social Vulnerabilities in the 21st Century: Towards a More Secure World’, to be held in Paris on 14-15 June 2005. The Forum provides an opportunity to update European bilateral donors on the strategy and work program for the World Bank’s Environmentally & Socially Sustainable Vice Presidency. A significant portion of the agenda is reserved for in-depth, issues-based break-out sessions.

Examples of ILRI projects with European partners are summarized below.

Saving Africa’s unique indigenous cattle breeds critical to its poorest people
In 1998, with funding from Ireland Aid and other European donors, the Africa-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) teamed up with Trinity College, Dublin, to analyse the genetic diversity of indigenous African cattle populations. This project completed molecular diversity datasets from the two centres, unravelled the genetic make-up of African cattle and identified priority cattle breeds for conservation or utilization for the benefit of the farmer communities. The project also helped nations develop strategies for conserving these animals and broadening their use. The project supported evidence that the African continent was a likely center of origin of cattle pastoralism. The latter award-winning research, published in the leading research journal Science, raised awareness of the genetic wealth of Africa’s indigenous cattle populations. African countries are now taking steps to conserve, characterize and make better use of them.

A public-private partnership for technological innovation against a lethal African cattle disease
The East Coast fever vaccine project is an initiative funded by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) to design and disseminate a bio-engineered vaccine against a parasite that kills cattle across eastern, central, and southern Africa. A complex set of partnerships between public and private sectors across several continents, including the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), in Kenya, the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, in Belgium, and the University of Oxford, UK, has played an important role in moving the science forward. The multinational veterinary pharmaceutical company Merial, headquartered in France, is helping to produce the vaccine for trial and will be responsible for the delivery of the vaccine among poor countries. A high degree of complementarity exists between the major partners. ILRI has reached an advanced state of research on the protozoan parasite that causes East Coast fever, bovine immunology and the economic impacts of the disease. Merial produces the vaccine candidates and has been working with Oxford on novel delivery system with potential spin-offs for other human and veterinary vaccines. The project is an example of conceiving and funding a ‘system of innovation’ within the CGIAR, one which cuts across research institutions in new ways, building capacity across the widest possible spread of partners, including NARS.

Conserving a unique genetic resource and way of life among Ankole pastoralists in East Africa
In late 2003, with funding from Austria, scientists from the Africa-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the BOKU University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, in Austria, launched a project to identify indigenous selection criteria and genetic diversity in African longhorn Ankole cattle. The results of this project will improve and sustain the livelihoods of poor Ankole cattle keepers in the four East African countries where these unique cattle are found: Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda and Tanzania. Specifically, the project is facilitating community-based delivery of technical interventions that are genetically improving this breed to meet the needs of their pastoral owners. In the process, the project will help the pastoral communities sustain their environment and culture as well as the genetic diversity of their breed. Indigenous knowledge of animal husbandry and breeding are being captured, as well as selection criteria used by the pastoralists to assess intangible values of their unique Ankole genetic resources.

Development of a second-generation anti-tick vaccine
In late 2004, the Swiss Centre for International Agriculture (ZIL) began funding a project conducted jointly by the Swiss Tropical Institute (Basel), Pevion Biotech (Bern), and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI, Nairobi), to develop an anti-tick vaccine to control ticks and tick-borne diseases of tropical cattle. Current tick-control methods rely on regular treatments of animals with acaracides, which kill the ticks. Development of an anti-tick vaccine is one of the most promising alternatives to chemical control, being much safer for the environment and human health. The only commercial vaccine against ticks currently on the market, based on a hidden tick-gut antigenic molecule, requires a series of inoculations to boost the vaccine’s effectiveness. This project is developing a novel antigen-delivery system for use in cattle using virosomes. The aim is to improve the efficiency, handling, user friendliness and cost of the existing vaccine for smallholder farmers. The technology platform developed for the new vaccine may be applied in future against a range of livestock diseases.

Smallholder dairy project

Posted on May 23, 2005 by ILRIComms

Award-winning dairy project reduces poverty through joint 'Action Research'. An award-winning eight-year collaboration has helped millions of Kenyans beat poverty and malnutrition. It’s done this through research on the country’s smallscale dairy workers. Modest dairy enterprises — comprising households milking one or two cows on tiny plots of land and young men hawking ‘raw’ (unpasteurized) milk that they transport on bicycles — make up an astonishing 85 percent of all the milk marketed in Kenya, one of the biggest per capita milk-producing and -drinking countries in the world. (Kenyan milk comprises 70 percent of total dairy production in East and South Africa.) Smallholder dairying creates regular incomes for hundreds of thousands of poor Kenyans and in addition is a big job creator, providing two full-time jobs for every 100 litres of milk produced. ‘Informal’ dairying thus dwarfs Kenya’s modern dairy sector. Nonetheless, this vast informal milk sector was, until recently, virtually ignored by national dairy policy, which viewed such trade illegitimate. Scientists conducting a ‘Smallholder Dairy Project’ combined scientific research, government policymaking, international development and social activism to bring about a shift to pro-poor dairy policymaking. The Smallholder Dairy Project was led by Kenya's Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries Development, jointly implemented by the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), and largely funded by the UK’s Department for International Development. These organizations succeeded in putting into practice ‘action research’ by working closely with government and regulatory bodies, the private sector, civil society organizations and the country’s formal and informal milk sectors. The Smallholder Dairy Project developed technologies such as disease-resistant fodder varieties, research-based guidelines for milk hygiene and a milk container affordable by the poor. Of greater import are the proposed national policy changes induced by the project’s research and now being written into the Kenya Dairy Act. These promise to create an enabling policy environment for ‘micro-sized’ dairy enterprises. As the Kenyan dairy industry was liberalized and expanded rapidly over the past decade, strong pressure was exerted on the government to insist that all milk sold be pasteurized to ensure the safety of the nation’s milk supply. That’s where research made the difference for the poor. Data obtained over the years by the Smallholder Dairy Project disclosed that almost all milk in Kenya is boiled by households before being consumed, indicating that raw milk represents no substantial public health hazard. This reliable information helped establish small dairy producers and milk traders as successful and credible agents in the eye’s of the country’s dairy policymakers and regulators, who are now, in the words of the permanent secretary in the ministry of livestock, ‘mainstreaming the raw milk market’. The new policies will, for example, allow Kenya’s informal dairy workers to be licensed, and thus brought into the formal economy for the first time. That’s good news for the country’s estimated 1.8 million informal milk producers and sellers. This project is helping to harmonize regional dairy policies through networks such as ASARECA’s Eastern and Central Africa Programme for Agricultural Policy Analysis. And the project’s approaches are being employed beyond the region, such as in the state of Assam, in northeastern India, where small-scale dairying, making up 97 percent of the dairy market, has potential to lift millions out of poverty.

VIP conference to revitalise Kenyan agriculture

Posted on March 11, 2005 by ILRIComms

ILRI poverty maps were snapped up at VIP conference to revitalise Kenyan agriculture held at Nairobi's Safari Park Hotel from 20-24 February 2005. Poverty maps pinpointing the greatest numbers and depths of poverty in Kenya and Uganda, as well as in the developing world as a whole, were snapped up at a major national conference on revitalizing agriculture in Kenya in February 2005. The maps were published by the Kenya-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and its partners, particularly the bureaux of statistics in Kenya and Uganda. The maps are available in print and CD-ROM versions from ILRI (g.kamau@cgiar.org) and on ILRI (www.ilri.org) and other websites. ILRI and partners published the poverty maps for Kenya in 2003, for Uganda in 2005 and for the developing world as a whole in 2002. These maps and their accompanying figures and analyses are proving key to work by Kenya, Uganda and other countries to reduce poverty and monitor progress towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals, particularly to halve world poverty by 2015, set by world leaders at the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000. The ‘National Conference on Revitalizing the Agricultural Sector for Economic Growth’, which ran from 20–24 February 2005, was organized by the ministries of agriculture, livestock and fisheries, and co-operative development and marketing. It was held at Nairobi’s Safari Park Hotel and was officially opened by His Excellency the President of Kenya, President Mwai Kibaki, on 22 February. Some fifteen hundred agricultural experts in governmental, non-governmental, international and regional organisations gathered at the week-long conference to develop a consensus on the most appropriate road map for revitalizing Kenya’s agricultural sector, which remains the bedrock of this country’s economy. ILRI directors and senior staff from other centres belonging to the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research participated in this high-level Kenya conference. They presented research results at plenary sessions, backstopped discussion fora with scientific data and analyses, and—in an exhibit booth adjacent to the conference hall—disseminated research products to participants. The President, Vice-President and attending Ministers of Kenya all carried away ILRI’s poverty maps and other publications that provide essential information for broad-based and equitable development. His Excellency the President of Kenya, President Mwai Kibaki, stops at the exhibit table of the International Livestock Research Institute to pick up Kenyan poverty maps and other ILRI research products from Ms Beatrice Ouma when the President opened Kenya’s ‘National Conference on Revitalizing the Agricultural Sector for Economic Growth’, held at the Safari Park Hotel from 20–24 February 2005.

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