Three presentations on livestock for–and in–development by ILRI director general Jimmy Smith

Posted on May 31, 2013 by Susan MacMillan

Wherefore ILRI? from ILRI

Here are three slide presentations recently made by Jimmy Smith, director general of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).

(1) Wherefore ILRI?, presented at ILRI’s annual program meeting, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 15 May 2013.

Key message

(2) The developing world’s smallholder livestock sector, presented at the Board of the International Federation for Animal Health, Brussels, 25 Apr 2013.

Key messages

Demand for livestock source foods is growing faster inthe in the developing than the developed world
Smallholder producers are now and will continue to be alarge part of the supply response for decades to come
Animal health constraints are binding in developing countries
As smallholder systems modernize, their need foranimal health and other inputs will grow
New opportunities exist for synergies between privateand public investments in animal health

(3) Livestock in developing countries: Animal health challenges and opportunities, presented at the General Assembly of the International Federation for Animal Health, Brussels, 25 Apr 2013.

Key messages
Global Development Challenges: The livestock dimensions

Promoting growth with equity—smallholder participation
Connecting smallholders to markets
Raising livestock productivity
Animal-human-ecosystems health and food safety
Rendering livestock systems more environmentally sustainable
Ameliorating the effects of climate change on livestock

More meat, milk and fish by and for the poor: CGIAR research initiative boosts livestock and fish production and food security in eight developing countries

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Paul Karaimu

A map showing the focus value chains and countries that are part of a CGIAR Program on Livestock and Fish (photo credit: ILRI).

In the face of rising global demand for animal-source foods, leading livestock and agricultural researchers from CGIAR are meeting this week (20–22 May 2013) in Ethiopia to explore ways to help poor people play a bigger role in feeding the planet’s growing populations by producing more livestock-based foods.

These researchers are part of a CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish, an initiative of four international research centres working with many other partners, which are all taking a new approach to tackle old problems. The International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and WorldFish are collaborating on research into sustainable ways of increasing smallholder production of meat, milk and fish by and for poor people in developing countries. This collaborative research-for-development team is also working to help small-scale farmers sell more of their animal products in markets so they can improve their incomes and livelihoods.

‘We’re hoping that through this program smallholders and medium-sized livestock enterprises can do more than just escape poverty’, said Jimmy Smith, director general of ILRI. ‘We can do this by helping them to become better food producers and suppliers and by building partnerships that get this research used at scale’, he said.

Started in January 2012, this Livestock and Fish Research Program focuses on eight value chains (processes through which commodities are produced, marketed and accessed by consumers): dairy, pigs, aquaculture, sheep and goats. Program staff members are currently working with farmer groups and other partners in Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Mali, Nicaragua, Tanzania, Uganda and Vietnam.

Most of the program’s work to date has been to establish the institutional and scientific frameworks within which program staff will operate, work that is highlighted in the program’s annual report, published this past April.

According to Tom Randolph, an ILRI agricultural economist who directs this multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional research program, in the past year and a half the program has succeeded (through some legacy as well as new projects) in helping to improve tilapia fish strains in Egypt, developing a thermostable vaccine for a highly contagious disease of goats and sheep (peste des petits ruminants, or PPR) in Kenya, improving varieties of a popular grass fodder (Brachiaria) for dissemination to farmers, and promoting pro-poor dairy development in Tanzania.

‘This program enables us to do agricultural research differently’, says Randolph. ‘It provides a novel, value chain framework, clear goals, and a 12–15 year timeframe in which to meet those goals—things we’ve not had in the past.’

Participants in this meeting, drawn from the four CGIAR research centres and other institutions based in Ethiopia that are participating in this Livestock and Fish Research Program, this week are devising the strategies, targets and action plans for the next phase of the program.

For more information, visit the CGIAR Livestock and Fish Research Program blog:

http://livestockfish.cgiar.org/

ILRI’s global livestock research agenda: A strategy for ‘better lives through livestock’

Posted on May 15, 2013 by Susan MacMillan

Jimmy Smith, director general of ILRI, speaks about the past, present and future of ILRI at ILRI’s Annual Program Meeting 2013, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (photo credit: ILRI/Zerihun Sewunet).

Jimmy Smith, director general of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), opened ILRI’s Annual Program Meeting today (15 May 2013), which is being held on ILRI’s campus in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, with some 250 participants, with a quick review (especially for ILRI’s many new staff) of where the institute has come from, where it is now and where it’s going.

Here’s some of what he said.

Ever since the food crisis in 2007, issues around food security have dominated global discussions. At the same time, we began to see that our ability to increase food production using conventional methods is insufficient to feed the growing world population.

So it’s a great time for science. We have the attention of policymakers at the highest levels, who are depending on us to find ways to feed the world, to lift the world’s vast army of small-scale rural food producers out of poverty, and to protect our environments and their critical natural resources that are the foundation of agriculture and human well-being.

We have new opportunities to work across the developing world with our partners, including nongovernmental organizations and the broader development community, to translate this research into big development benefits.

It is this prospect that is buoying me up today.

Now, about where we’re going.

Where ILRI is going
From pathways out of poverty to better lives through livestock.
Smallholders can contribute to global food and nutritional security, and to broader development goals, and do so in ways that are sustainable.

From reactive responses to proactive management of livestock ‘bads’.
We’re not getting rid of cars but rather making them more efficient with new parts like this turbocharger for sale. Similarly, we’re not going to get rid of farm animals but we can and must make livestock production systems more efficient.

From regional presence to regional programs.
We will have a larger presence in the regions so that we can engage our regional partners in more meaningful ways.

From action research to development in action.
The new CGIAR requires that our work show impact—and we have to form the partnerships that will allow us to do that.

We’re removing our ‘candle from under the bushel’ so that we have influence.
Not a lot of people other than those who read agricultural papers in science journals know about ILRI. We must be able to speak to all, to be relevant to many different audiences. We must shine our candle everywhere livestock matters are important matters for the poor.

We’re restoring our biosciences lustre.
As funding for long-term research dried up in the 1980s and 90s, investments in agriculture, especially the more long-term agricultural research, declined precipitously. So we lost much of our ability to conduct upstream biological science in the critical fields of animal feeds, nutrition and health. We see an opportunity to regain ground and do advanced bioscience that complements our integrated animal science so that we deliver fully on our mandate.

We’re building a business culture.
We must deliver our products to agreed specifications and quality, within budget and on time.

We’re creating an enabling environment.
Your directors are not your masters but your servants; it’s our job to provide you with an enabling environment so you can do your jobs.

Last words
We must make ILRI the world’s renowned research for development institution.
To make a difference, we’ll have to be the difference, the preferred place people come to for pro-poor livestock science, products, information, technologies, policies . . . .

We must make ILRI the place to be and work.
We want every one of you to be profoundly satisfied with your work here.

We must work for the poor.
That’s what we signed up to. Not because it’s our job. Because it’s our mission.

View the whole slide presentation by Jimmy Smith.

The livestock boom in India: Pathways to an increasingly profitable, pro-poor and sustainable sector

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Susan MacMillan

India, already the world’s biggest milk producer and beef exporter (mostly water buffalo), is investing in research to ensure that its poorest people reap increasing benefits from raising farm animals and do so in increasingly sustainable and healthy ways (photo credit: ILRI/Susan MacMillan).

Key recommendations from a high-level partnership dialogue held last November (2012) by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) have recently been published. These policy recommendations from ILRI and ICAR were released last week in New Delhi, India, by ILRI’s director general Jimmy Smith and ILRI’s deputy director general for integrated sciences John McIntire.

The ILRI-ICAR white paper distills major recommendations made at the partnership dialogue and serves as a basis for pro‐poor and sustainable livestock policy interventions in India.

The following excerpt is from the executive summary of this new publication.

‘With 485 million livestock plus 489 million poultry, India ranks first in global livestock population. Livestock keeping has always been an integral part of the socio‐economic and cultural fabric of rural India. In recent years, India’s livestock sector has been booming. Livestock now contribute about 25% of the output of the agricultural sector and the sub‐sector is growing at a rate of about 4.3% a year. With over 80% of livestock production being carried out by small‐scale and marginalized farmers, the benefits livestock generate for India’s poor are enormous and diverse.

‘Aimed to help cultivate joint learning, knowledge exchange and future partnership, the meeting brought together participants from 12 countries, including India. The attendance comprised of senior departmental heads in the government, directors of ICAR animal sciences national institutes, university vice chancellors, deans of veterinary universities, senior staff of leading non‐governmental organizations operating, representatives of farmer cooperatives, heads of private‐sector companies, and leaders and managers of international agencies including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Bank. All members of the ILRI Board of Trustees participated, as did officials of other CGIAR bodies operating in India.

‘The high‐level dialogue was inaugurated by Dr M.S. Swaminathan, renowned for his role in India’s Green Revolution of the 1960s and 70s. Dr Swaminathan stressed the urgent need for research and development partnerships to maintain sufficient momentum for the Indian livestock growth story. . . .

Dairy and small ruminant value chains
‘The gathered experts articulated the challenges and opportunities for the country’s millions of farmers trying to earn their living from small dairy and ruminant enterprises. What was critical was the consensus among experts in understanding that development of the country’s livestock value chains depends as much on smallholder access to services and inputs as it does on supply and marketing of livestock and their products. The participants also agreed that transforming India’s livestock value chains required better infrastructure and development of a policy framework for improved animal breeding.

Improved disease control
‘A subsequent session on animal health highlighted the need for better disease diagnostics, more affordable vaccines and better veterinary service delivery for small‐scale livestock keepers if the country was to succeed in better controlling diseases of livestock, as well as the many ‘zoonotic’ diseases that originate in farm animals and infect people as well. The experts in the session agreed that ICAR‐ILRI partnership should aim at capitalizing on ICAR’s excellent decision‐support system for predicting animal disease outbreaks in the country, and modify it further so as to make it highly valued and accessible for extensive use by scientists, administrators and policymakers alike.

Livestock nutrition
‘In another session presenting problems in animal nutrition, it was agreed that both conventional and new technologies should take ecological as well as economic considerations into account. With constant increase of animal numbers anticipated over the coming decades, fodder scarcities will have to be addressed through research work conducted to ensure the bio‐availability and digestibility of fodders available to India’s small‐scale livestock farmers.

‘All sessions of the all‐day dialogue named productive partnerships as crucial to bringing varied expertise together for designing sustainable solutions. In unison, the participants opinioned that such multi‐institutional and multi‐disciplinary expertise must understand that India’s animal expertise needs to ‘go to scale’ even as resources in fodder, land and water become ever more stretched.

‘Speakers and responders in the final session of the dialogue acknowledged the growing need of targeted research and development partnership in the country’s livestock sector. At the close of the day’s discussions, ILRI and ICAR signed a memorandum of understanding to help get research into use so as to accelerate the travel of research from laboratory to field, where it can transform lives of poor people.’

Download/read the publication: Livestock research and development summary report of the ICAR-ILRI Partnership Dialogue, 2013.

Read more about the Partnership Dialogue, 7 November 2012 on the ILRI News Blog:
India’s booming livestock sector: On the cusp?–Or on a knife edge?, 8 Nov 2013.

New advances in the battle against a major disease threat to cattle and people in Africa

Posted on May 1, 2013 by Susan MacMillan

An 8-month old cloned Boran calf named Tumaini (meaning ‘hope’ in Kiswahili), on the left, is part of a long-term ILRI research project to develop cattle for Africa that are genetically resistant to trypanosomiasis (photo credit: ILRI/Paul Karaimu).

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), a member of the CGIAR Consortium, is a non-profit organization based in Africa. ILRI’s mission is to use the best and safest livestock science available to confront poverty, hunger, and disease in the developing world, where livestock provide livelihoods and food for hundreds of millions of people.

One of ILRI’s most important priorities today is to help poor livestock keepers in Africa deal with the constant threat of a devastating disease called trypanosomiasis. This disease is arguably Africa’s most important livestock disease, wasting and killing cattle, commonly the most important asset of poor households. The human form of the disease is called sleeping sickness, which afflicts tens of thousands of people every year, killing many of them, and putting tens of millions more people at risk.

As part of ILRI’s comprehensive fight against trypanosomiasis, the institute is now in the very early stages of a project to develop disease-resistant cattle, which could save the lives of livestock and people both. Thus far, ILRI and its partners have taken a preliminary step in the process, which involved successfully cloning a male calf from one of East Africa’s most important cattle breeds, the Boran. The calf is healthy and is being raised at ILRI’s research facilities in Kenya.

A next step is to develop a new Boran clone modified with a gene that naturally confers resistance to the disease. This involves using a synthetic copy of a gene sequence originally identified in baboons that should protect cattle against this devastating disease.

A final step will be to use these disease-resistant cattle in breeding schemes that will provide African countries with another option in their fight against trypanosomiasis.

This research potentially offers a reliable, self-sustaining and cost-effective way of protecting tens of millions of African cattle against disease and untimely death, as well as dramatically reducing poverty across Africa. By reducing the reservoir of pathogens, this should also help to save thousands of human lives each year.

It could take up to two decades to develop disease-resistant cattle herds for Africa. ILRI and its partners are also continuing to pursue other options for fighting trypanosomiasis, such as rationale drug treatment and integrated disease control methods.

For ILRI, public safety and animal welfare are paramount; this means working with all the relevant Kenyan and international regulatory authorities to ensure that the highest bio-safety standards are always employed. In line with its commitment to transparency, ILRI places all of its research results in the public domain.

ILRI is working with a team that includes scientists from New York University, along with experts from the Roslin Institute in Scotland, and Michigan State University in the USA. The fundamental research aspects of this project are being funded by the US National Science Foundation.

For further information, see:
ILRI website:
https://www.ilri.org/breadtrypanosome

National Science Foundation:
www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=116932

2009 paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) on original breakthrough in this research project:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073%2Fpnas.0905669106

Or contact one of the following people:

Jimmy Smith
ILRI Director General
j.smith@cgiar.org

Suzanne Bertrand
ILRI Deputy Director General for Biosciences
s.bertrand@cgiar.org

Steve Kemp
Leader of ILRI’s research on this topic
s.kemp@cgiar.org

About ILRI: better lives through livestock
www.ilri.org
The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) works with partners worldwide to enhance the roles that livestock play in food security and poverty alleviation, principally in Africa and Asia. The outcomes of these research partnerships help people in developing countries keep their farm animals alive and productive, increase and sustain their livestock and farm productivity, find profitable markets for their animal products, and reduce the risk of livestock-related diseases. ILRI is a not-for-profit institution with a staff of about 600 and, in 2012, an operating budget of about USD 60 million. A member of the CGIAR Consortium working for a food-secure future, ILRI has its headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, a principal campus in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and offices in other countries in East, West and Southern Africa and in South, Southeast and East Asia.

About CGIAR: working for a food-secure future
www.cgiar.org
CGIAR is a global partnership that unites organizations engaged in research for a food-secure future. It is carried out by 15 centres that are members of the CGIAR Consortium and conducted in close collaboration with hundreds of partner organizations, including national and regional research institutes, civil society organizations, academia and the private sector. The CGIAR’s 8,000 scientists and staff work in the developing world to reduce rural poverty, increase food security, improve human health and nutrition, and ensure more sustainable management of natural resources. With unparalleled research infrastructure and dynamic networks across the globe, and maintaining the world’s most comprehensive collections of genetic resources, CGIAR is the only institution with a clear mandate on science and technology development for the eradication of hunger and poverty at the global level.

‘Health is not the absence of disease (and too important to be left to doctors)’–Keynote address

Posted on January 30, 2013 by Susan MacMillan

Minoan bronze bull and bull leaper, from Crete, around 1500 BC (image on Flickr by Ann Wuyts).

Increasing livestock production to meet rapidly growing demands in a socially equitable and ecologically sustainable manner is becoming a major challenge for the Asia-Pacific region. To discuss the challenges and a practical response, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), together with the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the Animal Production and Health Commission for Asia and the Pacific (APHCA) organized a Regional Livestock Policy Forum in Bangkok 16–17 Aug 2012.

The Asia and Pacific region has experienced the strongest growth in milk and meat over the last two to three decades. In three decades (1980 to 2010), total consumption of meat in the region grew from 50 to 120 million tonnes, and milk consumption grew from 54 to 190 million tonnes. By 2050, consumption of meat and milk in the region is projected to exceed 220 and 440 million tonnes, respectively. While this growth is creating new opportunities and better diets for many poor people, managing it will be a tall order and involve: stimulating income and employment opportunities in rural areas, protecting the livelihoods of small farmers, improving resource use efficiency at all levels of the livestock value chain, minimizing any negative environmental and health consequences of the growth, and ensuring adequate access by the poor to the food they need to live healthy lives.

The Aug 2012 Regional Livestock Policy Forum was held to find solutions. The 80 stakeholders in livestock development who attended represented governments, research agencies, civil society and multilateral organizations, think tanks, private-sector industries and regional and global networks.

Three keynote addresses highlighted environmental, social and health aspects of uncontrolled livestock sector growth. The director general of ILRI, Jimmy Smith, delivered the keynote on ‘health at the livestock-policy interface’. He described three kinds of health human, animal and ecosystem and the close interactions among them. Excerpts of his presentation follow. Several studies and research support this claim that delta-8 HC comes with numerous health benefits. where is delta 8 available? You will get the best delta-8 brands from usmagazine.com.

Slide from a presentation made by ILRI director general Jimmy Smith at a Regional Livestock Policy Forum in Bangkok 16–17 Aug 2012.

Livestock and nutrition
‘Livestock provide about a third of human protein. Even small amounts of animal protein greatly enhance the poor-quality diets of very poor people, many of whom subsist largely, for example, on sorghum and millet. But while 1 billion people are hungry, some 2 billiion are over-nourished, which is often attributed particularly to over-consumption of meat.

HEALTH ONE: Livestock and human health
‘Remarkably, 60% of human diseases, and 75% of emerging diseases (such as bird flu), are ‘zoonotic’, or come from animals, and 25% of all human infectious diseases in least-developed countries is zoonotic. A 2012 study led by ILRI veterinary epidemiologist Delia Grace estimates that the ‘top 13’ zoonoses each year kill 2.2 million people and make 2.4 billion people ill. The same study found that emerging zoonotic diseases are associated with intensive livestock production systems, with hotspots of these being in western Europe and USA, but that the high burden of neglected zoonotic diseases is associated with poor livestock keepers, with hotspots identified in Ethiopia, Nigeria and India.

HEALTH TWO: Livestock health
‘In developing countries, largely in contrast to developed nations, we still struggle to control what are known as ‘transboundary’ livestock diseases, which include, for example, Newcastle disease in chickens and foot-and-mouth disease in cattle. As important, however, are the common endemic diseases of low-income countries, such as parasitic infections, viral diarrhoea, respiratory and reproductive diseases. While we pay considerable attention to transboundary diseases, and emerging infectious diseases with pandemic potential, we are neglecting endemic diseases that hurt the world’s poor the most, and which some estimate are even more costly than transboundary diseases.

Slide from a presentation made by ILRI director general Jimmy Smith at a Regional Livestock Policy Forum in Bangkok 16–17 Aug 2012.

HEALTH THREE: Agro-ecosystem health
‘The downside: As many people are now aware, livestock are a significant source of the greenhouse gases warming our planet; they compete for water with staple grains and biofuels, and their diseases can spill over into wildlife populations. On the upside, livestock manure is an important source of organic matter needed for soil fertility (about 50% of the nitrogen used in agriculture in India comes from manure), permanent pastures are potentially an important store of carbon, and the current carbon ‘hoofprint’ can be greatly reduced through more efficient livestock production.’

Jimmy Smith then laid out some ‘prescriptions’.

Prescriptions for human health

Manage disease at its (early animal) source, not when it shows up (later) in humans
Invest in ‘one-health’ systems for preventing and controlling zoonotic diseases
Promote risk- and incentive-based (not regulatory- and compliance-based) food safety systems

Prescriptions for animal health

Support smallholder systems to improve livestock production and productivity
Use technology and innovations (e.g., vaccines) to improve animal health services
Take a whole value-chain-development (not piecemeal) approach

Prescriptions for ecosystem health

Manage externalities
Close large gaps in ruminant production
Reduce livestock-induced deforestation
Manage manure
Implement payment schemes for livestock-based environmental services

Advice for policymakers
And Smith had some advice for policymakers.

Invest in surveillance (re-incentivize disease reporting)
Better allocate resources between emerging and endemic diseases
Support innovations at all levels in the health sectors

The livestock director concluded his talk by saying:

It is our belief that we can feed the world, we can do so in environmentally sustainable ways, we can do so while reducing absolute poverty, and we can do so while improving the health of people, animals and the planet.

Health is not the absence of disease’, Smith said, quoting his scientist Delia Grace. ‘And it’s too important to be left to doctors.’

See Jimmy Smith’s whole slide presentation, Health at the livestock-policy interface, 16–17 Aug 2012, and/or watch this 25-minute filmed presentation of his presentation.

See a slide presentation made at the Bangkok Forum, Poverty, food security, livestock and smallholders, by ILRI’s Steve Staal and FAO’s Vinod Ahuja.

Presentations made at the meeting, a detailed program and a list of participants are available here.

Get the proceedings of the whole conference: Asian Livestock Sector: Challenges, Opportunities and the Response — Proceedings of an international policy forum held in Bangkok, Thailand, 16–17 August 2012. Animal Production and Health Commission for Asia and the Pacific, International Livestock Research Institute and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2013.

For more information, please contact:
Vinod Ahuja, FAO livestock policy officer, based in Bangkok: Vinod.Ahuja [at] fao.org
or
Purvi Mehta, Head of ILRI Asia, based in New Delhi: p.mehta [at] cgiar.org

Taking the long livestock view

Posted on January 23, 2013 by Susan MacMillan

Taking the long livestock view, slide presentation by ILRI director general Jimmy Smith.

View this slide presentation, Taking the Long Livestock View, made by Jimmy Smith, director general of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), at the Third Stakeholder Meeting of the Global Agenda of Action for Sustainable Livestock Sector Development, held in Nairobi, Kenya, on 22 January 2013.

What follows is the gist, but view the presentation itself to get the affecting imagery.

‘Long before recorded history, people depended on animals for their survival. Some seven to nine thousand years ago, people domesticated large herbivores. Evidence suggests that cattle domestication occurred in Africa as well as Mesopotamia (Iraq) and the Indus Valley (Pakistan). This animal domestication helped bring about the agricultural revolution.

‘Only during the last century did perceptions of the benefits of animals begin to diverge. People in more developed regions of the world began separating from the animals they raised and consumed. This is reflected in the “factory farms” of industrialized and industrializing parts of the world.

‘But people in less developed regions (mostly the South — especially in Africa and Asia) maintained close relations with their domesticated animals, which shared their farm compounds and scarce resources to support their livelihoods.

‘Thus, today perspectives on the value of livestock diverge, depending on whether people: (1) are poor or rich, (2) eat too little or too much and (3) live with or away from livestock.

‘For those who live with and depend on livestock:
• Livestock production and marketing remain essential to 1 billion people.
• 80% of the world’s livestock foods are generated on small farms, mostly those mixing animal raising with crop growing, and sold in informal markets.
• 80% of Africa’s poor keep livestock, which contribute at least one-third of their annual income as well as other benefits (e.g., food, manure, traction).
• Livestock are central to the lives and well-being of developing-country women, children and households.
• Women livestock producers, processors and sellers are essential to developing-country economies.

‘While domesticated animals remain highly valued in poor countries, it is companion animals that are increasingly revered in wealthier countries or segments of society today:
• World pet food sales are roughly USD72 billion annually
• and growing at a rate of 4% annually in the United States
• and at 11−12% annually in eastern Europe and Latin America.
• 62% of all households in the U.S. own a pet animal
• including 78 million dogs and 86 million cats who are in need of medicine like this calming treats for dogs and cats.
• costing their owners on average USD800 per animal per year.

‘As animals for food became divorced from animals for companionship in the U.S. and other rich countries, and have begun to be similarly divorced in urban areas of fast-developing countries, it is livestock that remain important to poor communities.

‘Now there is an added source of tension between those who can over-consume livestock and other foods and those who cannot. For many who have escaped poverty, environmental issues in the livestock sector are now paramount. For those who remain in absolute poverty, what is paramount is getting enough to eat, making a living, staying healthy.

‘So for those now divorced from livestock, the narrative is: If we want to save the planet, we should get rid of the livestock. And to preserve our health, we should stop eating meat.

‘But the on-going demand-led ‘livestock revolution’ happened fast. Green and equitable policies/incentives haven’t caught up with livestock practices. The livestock revolution of the South may slow but it will not stop. Some estimates show that demand for livestock foods will rise more than 100% in the next 30 years (and poultry by 170% in Africa).

‘Our livestock-related ills are largely the result of public sector neglect. We can grow the livestock sector in poor countries in ways that are:
• Green
• Equitable
• Sustainable
• Profitable

‘What can be done?
‘Those of us working in livestock for development can ensure that we approach livestock development as a transitory pathway out of poverty. And we can, and must, support many poor people in exiting the livestock sector in the coming decades.

‘Research can help
‘Research on the transition of livestock systems can:
• Address future as well as current food needs — understand better growth trajectories
• Exploit a diversity of starting points and solutions
• Work explicitly toward ‘inclusive growth’ that is both sustainable and equitable.

‘Research on biophysical matters can:
• Increase productivity via better livestock feeds, breeds and health
• Enhance the efficiency of animal production
• Improve control of livestock and zoonotic diseases
• Manage trade-offs in livestock vs human nutrition
• Find practical and equitable solutions to environmental problems.

‘Research on institutional matters can:
• Create incentives for environmental stewardship
• Build market and service provision models
• Build business enterprise models
• Provide evidence to guide livestock investments.

‘Our concern for the environment needn’t override our concern for the world’s poor.

‘Livestock are not the most important factor in developing-world agriculture. People are. For ten thousand years, livestock have mattered to people. They’ll almost certainly matter for a few thousand more. ILRI is delighted to be working with you, working towards convergence, and getting traction this week, on livestock futures that benefit all.’

Read more on the ILRI News Blog about the Global Agenda of Action in Support of Sustainable Livestock Sector Development and its Third Stakeholder Meeting, held in Nairobi, Kenya, on 22 January 2013: Greening the livestock sector: ‘Game changers’ for environmental, social, economic gains, 22 Jan 2013.

Fixing fodder shortages for dairy in East Africa and South Asia, beef in West Africa, goat/sheep meat in West and southern Africa

Posted on January 15, 2013 by Susan MacMillan

Fodder cut and ready for transporting in northern India (photo credit: ILRI/Susan MacMillan).

In 2012, a group of researchers at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) worked with partners at the World Bank, under the direction of Jimmy Smith, then a senior livestock advisor at the Bank and now director general of ILRI, in identifying investment opportunities for ruminant livestock feeding in developing countries.

Excerpts from the executive summary follow.

‘Driven by population growth, increasing demand, stricter quality and safety standards for animal source food and increasing competition for land and water resources, the livestock sector is changing rapidly. Within this changing landscape, smallholders with crops and livestock will remain the mainstay of the sector in developing countries for some decades to come.

For example, the projections in this report foresee an increase in cattle, sheep and goat populations in the mixed crop-livestock systems in the developing world from 467 million to 648 million adult cattle equivalents. However, also here, the abovementioned mega-trends and the resulting competition for feed resources imply that these systems will have to intensify to ensure an acceptable livelihood for its producers.

‘Enhancing the quality and quantity of feed, as one of the most important factors of animal production will play a critical role in this process of intensification. However, feed improvement should not be seen in isolation, but rather be assessed as part of the greater value chain, including all stakeholders. For example, investing in feed improvement without markets to sell the increased production from this investment or without an adequate feed quality control regulatory framework, would yield negative returns.

This report follows a step-by-step analytical framework that will provide the priority investments and actions in technologies, policies, and institutions.

‘As the first step in this framework, the most promising value chains, where feed-related strategies and investments are most likely to have significant impacts, have to be identified. On the basis of the key characteristics of (a) growth and market opportunities, (b) number of poor and pro-poor potential and (c) the supply constraints, in particular disease risk and feed resources availability, this report identifies first Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia as priority areas, and then, within these areas, it identifies three commodity value chains in five regions of particularly great potential to benefit poor producers and consumers. They are:

Dairy in East Africa and South Asia
because of the expected growth in demand (including export potential), the number of poor involved (135 million), and the moderately adequate situation resource situation
Beef in West Africa
because of its potential for import substitution and potential for improvement, in spite of the resource constraints
Small ruminant meat in West Africa and Southern Africa
because of the number of poor involved (110 million) and new domestic market opportunities.

‘The framework was then used to analyze the diversity of feed types, the availability of feed sources both from within and from outside of local systems, based on informant interviews and quantitative modeling of the current situation and with projections to 2030. Detailed data for each feed type and source are available in the main text, but the general trends show:

(a) A reduction in the use of crop residue
such as straws and stovers, although at a projected between 20 and 50 percent these remain a substantial part of the daily ration of the livestock of those systems.
(b) An increase in the use of crop-by-products
(such as oil cakes and by-products of the milling industry) and concentrates, although staying in 2030 mostly below ten percent, with the exception of the South Asian dairy systems, where they would amount to 25 percent of the total diet. With such a low share of the diet, and with most products not edible for humans, these systems would not endanger global food security.
(c) An increase in the area planted for forages,
in particular in dairy systems; and (d) a sharp increase in feed procurement from the market instead of supply from the own farm.

‘Based on these projections to 2030, opportunities for feed-related investments with major positive impacts on the poor are then identified. A number of strategies, policies, technologies, and services come to light as especially promising areas for such investment in a variety of scenarios. Applying the assessment framework to each of the three value chains yielded similar results for all chains. First of all, they stress that addressing feed related issues in the context of evolving value chains requires combinations of public and private investments: policies, strategies that facilitate adoption and market engagement with reduced transactions costs such as improved access to knowledge and services for smallholder producers and other market agents together with adoption of improved feed technologies.

‘The more specific areas of improvement that warrant priority in targeting investments are:

Technological feed improving solutions include in all value chains studied
(a) more attention to research and development for feed/food crops, i.e., crops that provide both food (mostly grain) for humans and feed (mostly straws) for livestock;
(b) better ration formulation, through the introduction of feed processing and storage technologies (including micro-sizing, ensiling, etc.) and
(c) forage seed production. . .
Institutional issues include access to land and water for all smallholders, as a primary concern and as the main incentive to improve crop-residues. Effective governance on feed quality is also a common institutional issue raised. Similarly, reduction on transaction costs (both to access the feeds and to participate in product markets) is another key area for institutional investment support. In all value chains, the report strongly advocates support to Business Development Services – interpreted in the broadest sense as a key to facilitating access to feeds, markets and for reducing transaction costs. . . .
The policy concerns are more value chain specific, and include the protection against dumping of meat and milk from the OECD countries, reduction of regional tariff barriers (in particular in Sub-Saharan Africa) and lack of investment in infrastructure.

‘While for many households increasing animal numbers is perceived as attractive, there are severe environmental limitations of the extent this is possible. Policies and investment that increase per animal productivity, such as adequate ration formulation and emphasis on mineral supplementation in the feed and nutrition domain, as well as genetic and health improvement related investment will be important. However, in some areas, increased efficiency (producing the same with fewer animals, or more with the same number of animals) can also be achieved through incentive systems such as payment for environmental services.

‘Ranking those investments regarding their economic return constitutes the final step in the analytical framework, underpinning this study. The analysis shows that for an individual household, the increase in animal numbers is the most attractive option, as has also been proven in the past.

Indeed, according to FAOSTAT (2010) data, most (57 percent over the period 1990–2010) of the increased production in Sub-Saharan Africa comes from an increase in animals, and not from increased productivity per animals. This is obviously not sustainable.

‘The key challenge therefore is to increase the profitability of raising productivity per animal. As better feed utilization will be a critical factor in enhancing the profitability and hence in ensuring the long term sustainability of these system, it is therefore encouraging that in most evaluations feed improvements (and in particular the use of crop-residues) rank from the third to the fifth place. The analytical framework also provides a ranking of the importance of timing over the 2010–2030 period in which investments are made. The results show that in general a fast trajectory (i.e. transformation early in the 20-year interval) is associated with relatively higher returns accruing to investments in selected feed types, compared to a “slow” trajectory. Fast action is therefore recommended.

‘The results of this study demonstrate that the assessment framework developed could be applied readily in other systems, and at the same time provides a basis that can be further built upon.

‘This peer-reviewed World Bank report was prepared under the guidance of Jimmy Smith, formerly of the World Bank and (since Nov 2011) now serving as director general of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), in Nairobi, Kenya, and Francois le Gall of the World Bank by an ILRI team consisting of William Thorpe, Derek Baker and Shirley Tarawali with Rainer Asse, Augustine Ayantunde, Michael Blummel, Oumar Diall, Alan Duncan, Abdou Fall, Bruno Gerard, Elaine Grings, Mario Herrero, Chedly Kayouli, Ben Lukuyu, Siboniso Moyo, Ranjitha Puskur, An Notenbaert, Tom Randolph, Steve Staal, Nils Teufel, Francis Wanyoike and Iain Wright. Further inputs were provided by Cees de Haan and Gunnar Larson from the World Bank.’

Read the report: Identifying investment opportunities for ruminant livestock feeding in developing countries, World Bank, 2012.

Livestock livelihoods for the poor: Beyond milk, meat and eggs

Posted on January 8, 2013 by Susan MacMillan

Kenya farm boy drinking milk (photo credit: ILRI/Dave Elsworth).

The science journal Animal Frontiers this month (Jan 2013) focuses on the links between livestock production and food security.

Maggie Gill edited the issue. Gill is an animal nutritionist by training who has spent years as a senior member of research institutions in the the UK (Natural Resources Institute, Natural Resources International, Macaulay Land Use Research Institute, Scottish Government) and presently divides her time between work for the UK Department for International Development and the University of Aberdeen while also serving on the CGIAR’s Independent Science and Partnership Council. She is a former board member of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).

In her introductory editorial to this issue, which focuses on livelihoods for poor owners and food for rich consumers, Gill reminds readers of the vast differences in livestock systems between the world’s poor and rich people and nations.

‘The relationship between livestock and food security is often portrayed by the media in emotional terms such as “Go vegetarian to save the planet”. Yet the relationship is not so simple. There are positive impacts of livestock on “the planet,” not the least in terms of the economy, with trade in live animals and animal products contributing 40% of the global value of agricultural output (FAO, 2009), but also in terms of the 1 billion poor people in Africa and Asia who depend on livestock for their livelihoods. The challenge is that there are also negative impacts of livestock, and they tend to be good headline grabbers!

‘I was pleased, therefore, to be invited to serve as guest editor of this issue of Animal Frontiers . . . [and] to have the opportunity to include papers about some of the lesser publicized facts about livestock and food security. . . . [A second issue on this topic will be published in Jul 2013.]

‘This issue takes a high-level perspective, exploring the relationship between people and animals (including fish) in developing countries, through trade and particularly in terms of nutrition. It then looks ahead to the challenge of climate change and considers how one traditional system (pastoralism) has evolved to cope with environmental instability. It ends with a paper on breeding strategies as an illustration of how scientific advances can help the livestock sector to make the best use of resources in a dynamic world. . . .’

One of the seven papers featured in this issue is by Jimmy Smith, ILRI director general, and his ILRI colleagues. The article focuses mainly on the impacts and implications of livestock on food and nutrition security in poor countries, which go well beyond being a source of milk, meat, and eggs.

‘The paper by Smith et al. (2013)’, Gill says, ‘highlights, for example, the indirect benefits of livestock to the food security of poor livestock owners through income from the sale of their livestock products, enabling the purchase of (cheaper) staple foods and thus improving the nutritional status of members of the household, albeit not in the way many researchers expect! . . .’

Below are a few of the facts noted in Smith’s paper, ‘Beyond meat, milk and eggs: Role of livestock in food and nutrition security’.

Farm animals both increase (smallholder systems) and decrease (industrial systems) food supplies
‘Livestock contribute to food supply by converting low-value materials, inedible or unpalatable for people, into milk, meat, and eggs; livestock also decrease food supply by competing with people for food, especially grains fed to pigs and poultry. Currently, livestock supply 13% of energy to the world’s diet but consume one-half the world’s production of grains to do so.’

Livestock directly enhance the nutrition security of the poor
‘However, livestock directly contribute to nutrition security. Milk, meat, and eggs, the “animal-source foods,” though expensive sources of energy, are one of the best sources of high quality protein and micronutrients that are essential for normal development and good health. But poor people tend to sell rather than consume the animal-source foods that they produce.’

Livestock enhance food security mostly indirectly
‘The contribution of livestock to food, distinguished from nutrition security among the poor, is mostly indirect: sales of animals or produce, demand for which is rapidly growing, can provide cash for the purchase of staple foods, and provision of manure, draft power, and income for purchase of farm inputs can boost sustainable crop production in mixed crop-livestock systems.’

Smallholder livestock production and marketing can be ‘transformational’ for the world’s poor
‘Livestock have the potential to be transformative: by enhancing food and nutrition security, and providing income to pay for education and other needs, livestock can enable poor children to develop into healthy, well-educated, productive adults.’

The complex trade-offs inherent in livestock systems must be managed to increase the benefits and reduce the costs
‘The challenge is how to manage complex trade-offs to enable livestock’s positive impacts to be realized while minimizing and mitigating negative ones, including threats to the health of people and the environment.’

Read the whole illustrated article at Animal Frontiers: Beyond milk, meat, and eggs: Role of livestock in food and nutrition security, by Jimmy Smith, Keith Sones, Delia Grace, Susan MacMillan, Shirley Tarawali and Mario Herrero, Jan 2013, Vol. 3, No. 1, p 6–13, doi: 10.2527/af.2013-0002

The whole issue is available at Animal Frontiers: The contribution of animal production to global food security: Part 1: Livelihoods for poor owners and food for rich consumers, Jan 2013, which you can read about on the ILRI Clippings Blog today: Animal production and global food security: Livelihoods for poor owners and food for rich consumers, 8 Jan 2012.

A few of our favourite (missed) livestock presentations in 2012

Posted on January 3, 2013 by Susan MacMillan

Here, for your New Year’s reading/viewing pleasure, are 20 slide presentations on 12 topics made by staff of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in 2012 that we missed reporting on here (at the ILRI News Blog) during the year.

Happy reading and Happy New Year!

1 LIVESTOCK RESEARCH FOR FOR DEVELOPMENT

>>> Sustainable and Productive Farming Systems: The Livestock Sector
Jimmy Smith
International Conference on Food Security in Africa: Bridging Research and Practice, Sydney, Australia
29-30 Nov 2012; posted on ILRI Slideshare 27 Nov 2012; 426 views.

Excerpts:
A balanced diet for 9 billion: Importance of livestock
•  Enough food: much of the world’s meat, milk and cereals comes from developing-country livestock based systems
•  Wholesome food: Small amounts of livestock products – huge impact on cognitive development, immunity and well being
•  Livelihoods: 80% of the poor in Africa keep livestock, which contribute at least one-third of the annual income.
The role of women in raising animals, processing and 3 selling their products is essential.

Key messages: opportunities
•  Livestock for nutrition and food security:
– Direct – 17% global kilocalories; 33% protein; contribute food for 830 million food insecure.
Demand for all livestock products will rise by more than 100% in the next 30 years, poultry especially so (170% in Africa)
– Indirect – livelihoods for almost 1 billion, two thirds women
•  Small-scale crop livestock systems (less than 2ha; 2 TLU) provide 50–75% total livestock and staple food production in Africa and Asia
and provide the greatest opportunity for research to impact on a trajectory of growth that is inclusive –
equitable, economically and environmentally sustainable.

>>> The Global Livestock Agenda: Opportunities and Challenges
Jimmy Smith
15th AAAP [Asian-Australasian Association of Animal Production] Animal Science Congress, Bangkok,Thailand
26–30 Nov 2012; posted on ILRI Slideshare 27 Nov 2012; 1,650 views

Excerpt:
Livestock and global development challenges
•  Feeding the world
– Livestock provide 58 million tonnes of protein annually and 17% of the global kilocalories.
•  Removing poverty
– Almost 1 billion people rely on livestock for livelihoods
•  Managing the environment
– Livestock contribute 14–18% anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, use 30% of the freshwater used for agriculture and 30% of the ice free land
– Transition of livestock systems
– Huge opportunity to impact on future environment
•  Improving human health
– Zoonoses and contaminated animal-source foods
– Malnutrition and obesity

>>> Meat and Veg: Livestock and Vegetable Researchers Are Natural,
High-value, Partners in Work for the Well-being of the World’s Poor
Jimmy Smith
World Vegetable Center, Taiwan
18 Nov 2012; posted on ILRI Slideshare 27 Nov 2012; 294 views.

Excerpts:
Livestock and vegetables suit an urbanizing, warming world
Smallholder livestock and vegetable production offers similar opportunities:
•  Nutritious foods for the malnourished.
•  Market opportunities to meet high urban demand.
•  Income opportunities for women and youth.
•  Expands household incomes.
•  Generates jobs.
•  Makes use of organic urban waste and wastewater.
•  Can be considered ‘organic’ and supplied to niche markets.

Opportunities for livestock & vegetable research
Research is needed on:
•  Ways to manage the perishable nature of these products.
•  Innovative technological and institutional solutions for food safety and public health problems that suit developing countries.
•  Processes, regulations and institutional arrangements regarding use of banned or inappropriate pesticides,
polluted water or wastewater for irrigation, and untreated sewage sludge for fertilizer.
•  Innovative mechanisms that will ensure access by the poor to these growing markets.
•  Ways to include small-scale producers in markets demanding
increasingly stringent food quality, safety and uniformity standards.

>>> The African Livestock Sector:
A Research View of Priorities and Strategies
Jimmy Smith
6th Meeting of the CGIAR Independent Science and Partnership Council, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
26−29 Sep 2012; posted on ILRI Slideshare 25 Sep 2012; 4,227 views.

Excerpts:
Livestock for nutrition
• In developing countries, livestock contribute 6−36% of protein and 2−12% of calories.
• Livestock provide food for at least 830 million food-insecure people.
• Small amounts of animal-source foods have large benefits on child growth and cognition and on pregnancy outcomes.
• A small number of countries bear most of the burden of malnutrition (India, Ethiopia, Nigeria−36% burden).

Smallholder competitiveness
Ruminant production
• Underused local feed resources and family labour give small-scale ruminant producers a comparative advantage over larger producers, who buy these.
Dairy production
• Above-normal profits of 19−28% of revenue are found in three levels of intensification of dairy production systems.
• Non-market benefits – finance, insurance, manure, traction – add 16−21% on top of cash revenue.
• Dairy production across sites in Asia, Africa, South America showed few economies of scale until opportunity costs of labour rose.
• Nos. of African smallholders still growing strongly.
Small ruminant production
• Production still dominated by poor rural livestock keepers, incl. women.
• Peri-urban fattening adds value.

>>> The CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish and its Synergies
with the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health
Delia Grace and Tom Randolph
Third annual conference on Agricultural Research for Development: Innovations and Incentives, Uppsala, Sweden
26–27 Sep 2012; posted on ILRI Slideshare 13 Oct 2012; 468 views.

Excerpts:
Lessons around innovations and incentives
• FAILURE IS GETTING EASIER TO PREDICT – but not necessarily success
• INNOVATIONS ARE THE LEVER – but often succeed in the project context but not in the real world
• PICKING WINNERS IS WISE BUT PORTFOLIO SHOULD BE WIDER– strong markets and growing sectors drive uptake
• INCENTIVES ARE CENTRAL: value chain actors need to capture visible benefits
• POLICY: not creating enabling policy so much as stopping the dead hand of disabling policy and predatory policy implementers
‘Think like a systemicist, act like a reductionist.’

>>> The Production and Consumption of Livestock Products
in Developing Countries: Issues Facing the World’s Poor
Nancy Johnson, Jimmy Smith, Mario Herrero, Shirley Tarawali, Susan MacMillan, and Delia Grace
Farm Animal Integrated Research 2012 Conference, Washington DC, USA
4–6 Mar 2012; posted on ILRI Slideshare 7 Mar 2012; 1,108 views.

Excerpts:
The rising demand for livestock foods in poor countries presents
– Opportunities
• Pathway out of poverty and malnutrition
• Less vulnerability in drylands
• Sustainable mixed systems
– Threats
• Environmental degradation at local and global scales
• Greater risk of disease and poor health
• Greater risk of conflict and inequity

• Key issues for decision makers
– appreciation of the vast divide in livestock production between rich and poor countries
– intimate understanding of the specific local context for specific livestock value chains
– reliable evidence-based assessments of the hard trade-offs involved in adopting any given approach to livestock development

• Institutional innovations as important as technological/biological innovations in charting the best ways forward
– Organization within the sector
– Managing trade offs at multiple scales

2 LIVESTOCK FEEDS

>>> Livestock feeds in the CGIAR Research Programs
Alan Duncan
Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) West Africa Regional Workshop on Crop Residues, Dakar, Senegal
10–13 Dec 2012; posted on ILRI Slideshare on 18 Dec 2012; 3,437 views.

>>> Biomass Pressures in Mixed Farms: Implications for Livelihoods
and Ecosystems Services in South Asia & Sub-Saharan Africa
Diego Valbuena, Olaf Erenstein, Sabine Homann-Kee Tui, Tahirou Abdoulaye, Alan Duncan, Bruno Gérard, and Nils Teufel
Planet Under Pressure Conference, London, UK
26-29 Mar 2012; posted on ILRI Slideshare 27 Mar 2012; 1,999 views.

3 LIVESTOCK IN INDIA

>>> Assessing the Potential to Change Partners’ Knowledge,
Attitude and Practices on Sustainable Livestock Husbandry in India
Sapna Jarial, Harrison Rware, Pamela Pali, Jane Poole and V Padmakumar
International Symposium on Agricultural Communication and
Sustainable Rural Development, Pantnagar, Uttarkhand, India
22–24 Nov 2012; posted on ILRI Slideshare 30 Nov 2012; 516 views.

Excerpt:
Introduction to ELKS
• ‘Enhancing Livelihoods Through Livestock Knowledge Systems’ (ELKS) is an initiative
to put the accumulated knowledge of advanced livestock research directly to use
by disadvantaged livestock rearing communities in rural India.
• ELKS provides research support to Sir Ratan Tata Trust and its development partners
to address technological, institutional and policy gaps.

4 AGRICULTURAL R4D IN THE HORN OF AFRICA

>>> Introducing the Technical Consortium
for Building Resilience to Drought in the Horn of Africa
Polly Ericksen, Mohamed Manssouri and Katie Downie
Global Alliance on Drought Resilience and Growth, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
5 Nov 2012; posted on ILRI Slideshare 21 Dec 2012; 8,003 views.

Excerpts:
What is the Technical Consortium?
• A joint CGIAR-FAO [Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations] initiative,
with ILRI representing the CGIAR Centres and the FAO Investment Centre representing FAO.
• ILRI hosts the Coordinator on behalf of the CGIAR.
• Funded initially by USAID [United State Agency for International Development] for 18 months –
this is envisioned as a longer term initiative, complementing the implementation of investment plans
in the region and harnessing, developing and applying innovation and research to enhance resilience.
• An innovative partnersh–ip linking demand-driven research sustainable action for development.

What is the purpose of the Technical Consortium?
• To provide technical and analytical support to IGAD [Inter-governmental Authority on Development]
and its member countries to design and implement the CPPs [Country Programming Papers]
and the RPF [Regional Programming Framework], within the scope of
the IGAD Drought Disaster Resilience and Sustainability Initiative (IDDRSI).
• To provide support to IGAD and its member countries to develop regional and national
resilience-enhancing investment programmes for the long term development of ASALs [arid and semi-arid lands].
• To harness CGIAR research, FAO and others’ knowledge on drought resilience and bring it to bear on investments and policies.

5 LIVESTOCK AND FOOD/NUTRITIONAL SECURITY

>>> Mobilizing AR4D Partnerships to Improve
Access to Critical Animal-source Foods
Tom Randolph
Pre-conference meeting of the second Global Conference for Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD2), Punta de Este, Uruguay
27 Oct 2012; posted on ILRI Slideshare 29 Oct 2012; 385 views.

Excerpts:
The challenge
• Can research accelerate livestock and aquaculture development to benefit the poor?
– Mixed record to date
– Systematic under-investment
– Also related to our research-for-development model?
• Focus of new CGIAR Research Program
– Increase productivity of small-scale systems
> ‘by the poor’ for poverty reduction
> ‘for the poor’ for food security

Correcting perceptions
1. Animal-source foods are a luxury and bad for health, so should not promote
2. Small-scale production and marketing systems are disappearing; sector is quickly industrializing
3. Livestock and aquaculture development will have negative environmental impacts

Our underlying hypothesis
• Livestock and Blue Revolutions: accelerating demand in developing countries as urbanization and incomes rise
• Industrial systems will provide a large part of the needed increase in supply to cities and the better-off in some places
• But the poor will often continue to rely on small-scale production and marketing systems
• If able to respond, they could contribute, both increasing supplies and reducing poverty
. . . and better manage the transition for many smallholder households.

6 LIVESTOCK INSURANCE

>>> Index-Based Livestock Insurance:
Protecting Pastoralists against Drought-related Livestock Mortality
Andrew Mude
World Food Prize ‘Feed the Future’ event, Des Moines, USA
18 Oct 2012; posted on ILRI Slideshare 22 Oct 2012; 576 views.

Excerpts:
Index-Based Livestock Insurance
• An innovative insurance scheme designed to protect pastoralists against the risk of drought-related livestock deaths
• Based on satellite data on forage availability (NDVI), this insurance pays out when forage scarcity is predicted to cause livestock deaths in an area.
• IBLI pilot first launched in northern Kenya in Jan 2010. Sold commercially by local insurance company UAP with reinsurance from Swiss Re
• Ethiopia pilot launched in Aug 2012.

Why IBLI? Social and Economic Welfare Potential
An effective IBLI program can:
• Prevent downward slide of vulnerable populations
• Stabilize expectations & crowd-in investment by the poor
• Induce financial deepening by crowding-in credit S & D
• Reinforce existing social insurance mechanisms

Determinants of IBLI Success
DEMONSTRATE WELFARE IMPACTS
• 33% drop in households employing hunger strategies
• 50% drop in distress sales of assets
• 33% drop in food aid reliance (aid traps)

7 LIVESTOCK-HUMAN (ZOONOTIC) DISEASES

>>> Lessons Learned from the Application of Outcome Mapping to
an IDRC EcoHealth Project: A Double-acting Participatory Process
K Tohtubtiang, R Asse, W Wisartsakul and J Gilbert
1st Pan Asia-Africa Monitoring and Evaluation Forum, Bangkok, Thailand
26–28 Nov 2012; posted on ILRI Slideshare 5 Dec 2012; 1,395 views.

Excerpt:
EcoZD Project Overview
Ecosystem Approaches to the Better Management of Zoonotic Emerging
Infectious Diseases in the Southeast Asia Region (EcoZD)
•  Funded by International Development Research Centre, Canada (IDRC)
•  5-year project implemented by International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)
•  Goals: capacity building & evidence-based knowledge•  8 Research & outreach teams in 6 countries.

>>> Mapping the interface of poverty, emerging markets and zoonoses
Delia Grace
Ecohealth 2012 conference, Kunming, China
15–18 Oct 2012; posted on ILRI Slideshare 23 Nov 2012; 255 views.

Excerpt:
Impacts of zoonoses currently or in the last year
• 12% of animals have brucellosis, reducing production by 8%
• 10% of livestock in Africa have HAT, reducing their production by 15%
• 7% of livestock have TB, reducing their production by 6% and from 3–10% of human TB cases may be caused by zoonotic TB
• 17% of smallholder pigs have cysticercosis, reducing their value and creating the enormous burden of human cysticercosis
• 27% of livestock have bacterial food-borne disease, a major source of food contamination and illness in people
• 26% of livestock have leptospirosis, reducing production and acting as a reservoir for infection
• 25% of livestock have Q fever, and are a major source of infection of farmers and consumers.

>>> International Agricultural Research and Agricultural Associated Diseases
Delia Grace (ILRI) and John McDermott (IFPRI)
Workshop on Global Risk Forum at the One Health Summit 2012—
One Health–One Planet–One Future: Risks and Opportunities, Davos, Switzerland
19–22 Feb 2012; posted on ILRI Slideshare 5 Mar 2012; 529 views.

8 LIVESTOCK MEAT MARKETS IN AFRICA

>>> African Beef and Sheep Markets: Situation and Drivers
Derek Baker
South African National Beef and Sheep Conference, Pretoria, South Africa
21 Jun 2012; posted on ILRI Slideshare 24 Nov 2012; 189 views.

Excerpt:
African demand and consumption: looking to the future
• By 2050 Africa is estimated to become the largest world’s market in terms of pop: 27% of world’s population.
• Africa’s consumption of meat, milk and eggs will increase to 12, 15 and 11% resp. of global total (FAO, 2009)

9 KNOWLEDGE SHARING FOR LIVESTOCK DEVELOPMENT

>>> Open Knowledge Sharing to Support Learning in
Agricultural and Livestock Research for Development Projects
Peter Ballantyne
United States Agency for International Development-Technical and Operational Performance Support (USAID-TOPS) Program: Food Security and Nutrition Network East Africa Regional Knowledge Sharing Meeting, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
11–13 Jun 2012; posted on ILRI Slideshare 11 Jun 2012; 2,220 views

10 LIVESTOCK AND GENDER ISSUES

>>> Strategy and Plan of Action for Mainstreaming Gender in ILRI
Jemimah Njuki
International Women’s Day, ILRI, Nairobi, Kenya
8 Mar 2012; posted on ILRI Slideshare 8 Mar 2012; 876 views.

11 AGRICULTURAL BIOSCIENCES HUB IN AFRICA

>>> Biosciences eastern and central Africa –
International Livestock Research Institute (BecA-ILRI) Hub:
Its Role in Enhancing Science and Technology Capacity in Africa
Appolinaire Djikeng
Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Vancouver, Canada
16–20 Feb 2012; posted on ILRI Slideshare 20 Feb 2012; 2,405 views.

12 PASTORAL PAYMENTS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES

>>> Review of Community Conservancies in Kenya
Mohammed Said, Philip Osano, Jan de Leeuw, Shem Kifugo, Dickson Kaelo, Claire Bedelian and Caroline Bosire
Workshop on Enabling Livestock-Based Economies in Kenya to Adapt to Climate Change:
A Review of PES from Wildlife Tourism as a Climate Change Adaptation Option, at ILRI, Nairobi, Kenya
15 Feb 2012; posted on ILRI Slideshare 27 Feb 2012; 762 views.

India’s booming livestock sector: On the cusp?–Or on a knife edge?

Posted on November 8, 2012 by Susan MacMillan

On 4 Nov 2012, an ILRI delegation of 28 visited the village of Araipura, in the Karnal District in the Indian state of Haryana, where they held discussions with dairy farm families. Above are ILRI’s director general Jimmy Smith (left) and ILRI’s Asia program head Purvi Mehta-Bhatt (right) at a media interview of Anil K Srivastava (middle), director of India’s premier dairy research organization, the National Dairy Research Institute, based in Karnal. ILRI’s management team and board of trustees also visited the main campus at National Dairy Research Institute, at Karnal. These field visits preceded a meeting of ILRI’s board and management in New Delhi on 5–6 Nov, followed by an ILRI-ICAR Partnership Dialogue on 7 Nov 2012. (Photo credit: ILRI)

A partnership dialogue organized by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) on livestock, research and development was held yesterday (7 Nov 2012) in New Delhi.

India’s booming livestock sector
With 485 million livestock and 489 million poultry, India ranks first in global livestock population. Livestock keeping has always been an integral part of the socio-economic and cultural fabric of rural India. In recent years, India’s livestock sector has been booming. India has become the leading exporter of buffalo beef and it has turned from a milk-deficient nation into the world’s largest dairy producer, accounting for close to 17% of global production.

While the contribution of agriculture to the country’s GDP continues to fall with industrialization, the contribution of the livestock sector to India’s agricultural output only continues to increase. Livestock now contribute 28% of the output of the agricultural sector and the sub-sector is growing at a rate of 4.3% a year while that for the agricultural sector as a whole is growing at just 2.8% a year. Last year, India’s livestock sector output value was estimated to be over USD40 billion—more than all grains combined.

With over 80% of livestock production being carried out by small-scale and marginalized farmers, the benefits livestock generate for India’s poor are enormous and diverse. But while livestock are a prime force in this country’s economy and the well-being of hundreds of millions of its people, the sector has not yet been given the level of attention it warrants.

Livestock are both central to India’s development and a threat to it
Environmental impacts: While millions of people in India are benefiting from better incomes and nutrition due to livestock, there are great environmental and public health risks associated with the country’s livestock sector. For starters, India’s projected spike in demand for milk and meat—176% by 2025—will have tremendous impacts on the environment; already, for example, global livestock production accounts for up to one-fifth of human-generated greenhouse gas emissions.

Zoonotic diseases: And India’s fast-growing human population and resulting increasing animal-human interactions, combined with changing environmental conditions and inadequate sanitation and regulation, have made India one of the world’s top hotspots for livestock diseases, including zoonotic diseases—those that pass from animals to humans and which make up 75% of all human diseases. Controlling zoonoses is particularly important in developing countries, where the absolute burden of these diseases is up to 130 times greater than in rich countries. An ILRI global report released in July of this year, Mapping of Poverty and Likely Zoonoses Hotspots, ranked India near the top of the list globally for the highest burden of zoonoses—in terms of both absolute numbers of those infected with zoonoses and the level of intensity of the zoonoses infections.

Classical swine fever, a highly contagious pig disease, poses a threat to rural farmers in India’s northeastern states of Assam, Mizoram and Nagaland—80% of whom keep pigs and 46.6% of whom identify pig farming as the most promising source of income. ILRI’s research has shown that nearly USD40 million in income is lost to the disease annually in these three states. As a result of targeted advocacy at the national ministry level, the government is allocating new funds for dealing with classical swine fever.

India’s Operation Flood, which started in the 1970s, has helped to increase national milk consumption by 30% over the last two decades. However, 80% of all sold milk is still marketed by informal traders, often perceived as unreliable, which discourages the investment into more productive animals and better inputs. What should India be doing to reach those farmers still living on the margins and who have yet to reap the benefits of India’s milk boom?

Livestock ‘goods’ and ‘bads’: The roles of livestock globally–both positive and the negative—must be better understood, particularly why researchers and policymakers must draw a distinction between the developed and developing world when it comes to the future of livestock. The current public debate on livestock is dominated by concerns of the developed world on the negative environmental and health impacts of livestock. Experts at ILRI argue that this one-sided focus can leave the poor as victims of generalizations and justify the neglect of research needed to improve the sector’s environmental performance and management of disease risks, especially in parts of the world where the benefits of livestock, which provide most poor household’s with livelihoods, regular incomes and good nutrition, outweigh its problems.

The ILRI-ICAR Partnership Dialogue
Among those who led the Partnership Dialogue from ILRI are Jimmy Smith, a global expert on livestock production for developing countries who heads up ILRI in Nairobi, Kenya, and Purvi Mehta-Bhatt, who is head of ILRI’s Asia program and based in New Delhi. All of ILRI’s international board of trustees and senior management participated in the Dialogue, as well as the director general of ICAR, the directors of ICAR’s animal science institutes and several vice chancellors and deans, with a total of 12 countries represented. The high-level meeting was inaugurated by MS Swaminathan, India’s foremost geneticist renowned for his role in India’s ‘Green Revolution’, member of India’s parliament and chairman the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation. The Dialogue was ably facilitated by S Ayyappan, director general of ICAR and secretary of the Department of Agricultural Research and Education, and KML Pathak, deputy director general of animal sciences at ICAR.

Leaders in government, non-governmental, research and private-sector organizations made presentations and three thematic sessions generated discussions on smallholder dairy and small ruminant value chains, animal health and animal feed and nutrition. A high-profile white paper will be produced from the proceedings of this dialogue to distill the major recommendations made and serve as a basis for pro-poor and sustainable livestock policy interventions in the country.

Notes
Jimmy Smith, director general of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)
Jimmy Smith, a Canadian citizen, was born in Guyana, in the Caribbean, where he was raised on a small mixed crop-and-livestock farm. He was appointed director general of ILRI in April 2011. Before joining ILRI, Smith served for five years at the World Bank, leading the its Global Livestock Portfolio. Before that, Smith held senior positions at the Canadian International Development Agency (2001–2006). Earlier in his career, Smith had worked at ILRI and its predecessor, the International Livestock Centre for Africa (1991–2001). At ILCA and then ILRI, Smith was the institute’s regional representative for West Africa, where he led development of integrated research promoting smallholder livelihoods through animal agriculture and built effective partnerships among stakeholders in the region. At ILRI, Smith spent three years leading the CGIAR Systemwide Livestock Programme, an association of 10 CGIAR centres working on issues at the crop-livestock interface. Before his decade of work at ILCA/ILRI, Smith held senior positions in the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (1986–1991), where he embarked on his career supporting international livestock for development. Smith holds a PhD in animal sciences from the University of Illinois, at Urban-Champaign, USA.

Purvi Mehta-Bhatt, head of ILRI Asia
Purvi Mehta-Bhatt is the head of ILRI’s work in Asia and is based in New Delhi, India. Mehta-Bhatt has been involved in many capacity development, outreach and technology transfer initiatives in India and around the world and brings over 16 years of experience in designing and implementing capacity development and stakeholder networking interventions. As director of Science Ashram in India from 1997 to 2005, she worked with more than 60,000 farmers and as country coordinator for the South Asia Biosafety Program. She serves on the board of several organizations, including the International Centre for development-oriented Research in Agriculture, the International Association of Ecology and Health and the Roadmap to Combat Zoonosis in India.

Read more about the ILRI-ICAR Partnership Dialogue on ILRI’s Clippings Blog: Lessons from India’s smallholder dairy successes can help developing world–ILRI’s Jimmy Smith, 8 Nov 2012.

‘Livestock insurance project an excellent example of innovative risk management in Kenya’s arid lands’ – Kenyan minister

Posted on September 10, 2012 by Paul Karaimu

Marjaana Sall, deputy head of delegation of the European Union to Kenya, Jimmy Smith, director general of ILRI, Mohammed Elmi, Kenya’s minister of state for development of northern Kenya and other arid lands and Romano Kiome, permanent secretary in Kenya’s ministry of agriculture at the launch of the Kenya Rural Development Programme (KRDP) at the KARI centre in Kiboko, Makueni on 7 Sept 2012 (photo credit ILRI/Paul Karaimu).

Kenya’s minister of state for development of northern Kenya and other arid lands, Mohamed Elmi, has praised a livestock insurance project implemented in Kenya by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and other partners for its role in improving the productivity of the country’s drought-prone arid and semi-arid lands. If you also need to handle a delicate business plan. we recommend reading here about this project management software Australia business are using.

‘The index-based livestock insurance project in Marsabit District is an excellent example not just of innovative risk management, but of how, with thought and imagination, basic services such as insurance can be brought within reach of those previously excluded,’ said Elmi.

The minister was speaking last week (7 Sep 2012) at the launch of a five-year Kenya Rural Development Programme at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute rangeland research station at Kiboko, located in Makueni County. Representatives from the Kenya government, the European Union and international research organizations, including ILRI, participated in the launch.

The Kenya Rural Development Programme is a new five-year agricultural support program funded by the European Union at 66 million euros. It is seeking to improve drought response and management and agricultural productivity in the country’s arid lands and to reduce the vulnerability of people living in these areas.

Jimmy Smith, the director general of ILRI, who attended the launch, said the index-based livestock insurance project is making rangelands-based livelihoods more sustainable.

‘Promoting food security and reducing poverty in arid areas is a key priority for the government. I’m delighted the minister highlighted the role IBLI is playing in this process; ILRI is committed to making an important contribution,’ said Smith.

The insurance project, which was piloted in Marsabit District, in northern Kenya, in 2010, is a component of the Kenya Rural Development Programme. The project is a result of collaborative efforts between ILRI, UAP Insurance, Cornell University and the Index Insurance Innovation Initiative, based at the University of California at Davis. A second phase of the project, which started in southern Ethiopia in August 2012, has received 1 million euros from the European Union.

‘The Kenya Rural Development Programme responds to the development needs of the rural people in Kenya and the support given by the European Union to the agricultural sector will improve the lives of people in the country,’ said Marjaana Sall, deputy head of delegation of the European Union to Kenya.

The event featured displays of European Union-funded activities in Kenya’s rangelands from the Kenya Rural Development Programme, the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute and ILRI, among other exhibitors, and was attended by local community members and farmers in Kiboko.

Read recent stories about index-based livestock insurance: https://newsarchive.ilri.org/archives/8149

Read more about the Kenya Rural Development Programme: http://www.dmikenya.or.ke/

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