A herd of sheep and goats in northern Kenya (photo on Flickr by gordontour).

The dry areas of the developing world occupy over 40% of the earth’s surface and are home to some 2.5 billion people. Many in these regions struggle to provide sufficient food for their growing populations and face a series of daunting physical and demographic challenges: high poverty levels and unemployment, rapid urbanization, severe water scarcity, and land degradation. Many of these problems and constraints are expected to worsen as a result of climate change.

An ambitious new science program launched in Jordan in mid-May 2013—the CGIAR Research Program on Dryland Systems—aims to raise agricultural productivity and strengthen food security in the driest areas of the developing world. This USD120 million initiative, covering an initial three years, is the latest ‘research for development’ initiative of CGIAR, the world’s leading agricultural research partnership.

The Dryland Systems program is a new partnership of more than 60 research and development organizations. It proposes a ‘holistic’ approach to improving the food security and income of rural communities that live on tropical and non-tropical dry areas. Following an intense consultation and planning phase among a wide range of stakeholders in 2012, including scientists, civil society partners and policymakers, the program is now being implemented in five regions: the West African Sahel and the Dry Savannas, East and Southern Africa, North Africa and West Asia, Central Asia and the Caucasus, and South Asia.

Livestock production is among the main strategies this program is employing to improve agricultural productivity in these dryland areas. This includes integrating dryland crops with the keeping of goats, sheep and other animal stock to increase the resilience of communities in marginal areas through the production and sale of milk, cheese, yoghurt, meat and wool.

Goats being watered at in Dilmanyale Village, Kenya; once the animals have finished drinking, they must be herded over 10 km to get to pasture (photo on Flickr by Anna Ridout/Oxfam).

Work of this drylands agricultural research program in East and Southern Africa
In the coming six years, the program aims to assist 20 million people and mitigate land degradation over 600,000 square kilometres in East and Southern Africa.

This regional component of the program is led by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and ILRI scientist Polly Ericksen.

Over 70% of marginal land in East and Southern Africa is categorized as arid, Ericksen says, with most of the rest semi-arid and the whole region subject to frequent drought.

Droughts, which lead to heavy livestock losses, are becoming more common in this region, which doesn’t allow time for the animal herds to recover between long dry spells. Many of the marginal rangelands in this region are degraded, commonly due to increasing human populations (much of them non-pastoral) and the resulting fragmentation of former rangelands, which is reducing the (critically important) mobility of livestock herders and their animal stock and leading to conflicts.

Levels of poverty, vulnerability and central government neglect in these drylands are all high. Increases in basic services and infrastructure would help promote diversification of livelihoods and market engagement (only 22% of households can reach the nearest market in less than three hours; nearly one quarter require more than 12 hours to get to the market), as well as reduce vulnerability, among communities in the region.

About CGIAR and the CGIAR Dryland Systems Research Program
CGIAR is a global agriculture research partnership for a food secure future. Its science is carried out by the 15 research centers who are members of the CGIAR Consortium in collaboration with hundreds of partner organizations. The CGIAR Research Program on Dryland Systems is a global research partnership led by the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), with nine CGIAR research centres, including the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and some 60 partners worldwide. This dryland systems research program is conducted in the West African Sahel and the Dry Savannas, East and Southern Africa, North Africa and West Asia, Central Asia and the Caucasus, and South Asia.

Filed under: CRP11, Drought, Drylands, East Africa, Goats, ILRI, Launch, Pastoralism, PLE, Sheep, Small Ruminants, Southern Africa, Vulnerability Tagged: ICARDA, Polly Ericksen

Fulani boy in Niger herds his family’s animals (photo credit: ILRI/Stevie Mann).

Mobility to unlock scattered food, feed, water and other scarce and scattered essential resources is a human strategy as old as humankind itself—and one that remains key for pastoral livestock herders the world over. As the world warms and its natural resources become ever scarcer, it would profit all of us to take a long hard look at how livestock herders track those resources over time and space, and how their movement and that of their animal herds helps them stay resilient in the face of some of the earth’s most unforgiving, and now increasingly unpredictable and extreme, climates.

It appears the rest of us are going to need to adopt strategies for resilience sooner rather than later. Last Thursday, reports Polly Ericksen, scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), was a red letter day. On that day, 9 May 2013, the level of emissions of carbon dioxide reached an average daily level above 400 parts per million, a concentration not seen on the earth for millions of years.

Red Letter Day
The new measurement came from analyzers atop Mauna Loa, the volcano on the big island of Hawaii that has long been ground zero for monitoring the worldwide trend on carbon dioxide, or CO2. . . . Carbon dioxide above 400 parts per million was first seen in the Arctic last year, and had also spiked above that level in hourly readings at Mauna Loa. But the average reading for an entire day surpassed that level at Mauna Loa for the first time in the 24 hours that ended at 8 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Thursday.’ — Heat-trapping gas passes milestone, raising fears, New York Times, 10 May 2013

Carbon dioxide, of course, is the most important heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere. So what do we know about what will happen as the world’s average temperatures rise with the increasing amounts of carbon trapped in our atmosphere? Well, not much, as even our most sophisticated and integrated models are unable to forecast likely changes after a certain threshold has been passed. But what we can surmise is grim, as the following plausible scenarios illustrate.

One degree, two degrees, three degrees, four . . .
With a global average rise of 2ºC, ‘Greenland’s glaciers and some of the lower lying islands would start to disappear. At 3ºC higher the Arctic would be ice-free all summer, the Amazon rainforest would begin to dry out and extreme weather patterns would become the norm. An increase of 4ºC would see the oceans rise drastically. Then comes the twilight zone of climate change, if the global temperature rises again by another degree. Part of once temperate regions could become uninhabitable, while humans fight each other for the world’s remaining resources. The sixth degree is what is called the doomsday scenario as oceans become marine wastelands, deserts expand and catastrophic events become more common.’ — Six degrees could change the world, National Geographic, 2012

Studies written by scientists at 14 of the 15 CGIAR centres and compiled and published last year by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) (Impacts of climate change on the agricultural and aquatic systems and natural resources within the CGIAR’s mandate, 2012) provide a snapshot of how climate change is likely to affect key food crops and livestock farming and natural resources in poor countries, where these staple foods and resources remain the backbone not only of food security but also of national economies.

While nothing is certain, a few things are probable, writes Philip Thornton, scientist at CCAFS and ILRI and leader of the research study. First and foremost is that old-fashioned foods and food production strategies are likely to make some major comebacks.

Crops and animals till now neglected by major research initiatives, and now considered ‘old-fashioned’ by many, are likely to play an increasingly important role on global food production once again. Drought-resistant camels and goats, ‘famine foods’ such as heat-tolerant cassava and millet, and dual-purpose crops such as protein-rich cowpea (aka black-eyed peas) and groundnut that feed people and animals alike are all likely to come back to the fore in regions with drying or more unpredictable climates. In some drying regions, smallholders will be forced to switch from crop growing to livestock raising, and/or from raising dairy cows to raising dairy or other goats. — As the cooking pot turns: Staple crop and animal foods are being ‘recalibrated’ for a warmer world, ILRI News Blog, 1 Nov 2012

So herding livestock, the so-called ‘pastoral’ food production system, is likely to become much more important as we warm the globe. But as Mike Shanahan, press officer for the International Institute for Environment and Development (UK), reports this week, if we’re going to increasingly rely on livestock herding across the world’s current vast drylands, and across the lands now drying up, to help feed our increasingly crowded planet and support the lives and livelihoods of its poorest people, we’d better start rethinking the ways we perceive, talk about and approach pastoralism, now a neglected sector in many fast-modernizing countries, which tend to view it as ‘backward’.

Shanahan recently investigated how media reports on pastoralism in India, China and Kenya. ‘These policy narratives overlook both the dynamics of dryland ecosystems and how dryland communities have long learnt how to live with and harness variability to support sustainable and productive economies, societies and ecosystems.

The narratives ignore the ways that mobile herding can increase people’s resilience in a changing climate. They also ignore the three E’s—the economic value of pastoralism, the environmental benefits that herding brings to rangelands and the equity that should be at heart of good policymaking.

‘Once upon a time, not so long ago,’ says Shanahan, ‘we were all mobile. Movement was what enabled our ancestors to track resources that were here today, gone tomorrow. In parts of the world where water, pasture or good hunting are not constantly available, mobility is still the key that unlocks scattered resources. It is the key to resilience. And as the climate changes, this ancient strategy could become more important.

‘Yet in many countries, governments marginalise mobile pastoralists and would prefer them to settle instead of roaming the land. Dominant policy narratives cast pastoralism as a backwards, unproductive activity that takes place in marginal fragile areas, where unpredictable rainfall leads people to overgraze and damage the land.

Media stories both contribute to and reflect the dominant policy narrative around pastoralism.

‘In Kenya, pastoralists feature mostly in ‘bad news’ stories of conflict and drought. They appear vulnerable and lacking in agency. Stories make almost no mention of the benefits that pastoralists bring.

‘In China, the media presented pastoralists as the cause of environmental degradation and as (generally happy) beneficiaries of government investment and settlement projects.

‘In India, newspapers tended to portray pastoralists with more pity, as people whose rights to grazing land had been taken away and whose livelihoods were at risk as pastures dwindle and locally resilient livestock breeds disappear. . . .

Yet opportunities to reframe pastoralism abound. In Kenya, for instance, an alternative narrative could show how the new constitution could work best for the drylands and their communities. In India, an alternative narrative could show how herding is part of the wider dryland agriculture system that can increase food security in the context of climate change. In China, an alternative narrative can relate how support for pastoralism can increase food security and better manage rangelands for economic benefits. . . .’

Read the whole article by Mike Shanahan on the Agriculture and Ecosystems Blog of the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems: Pastoralists in the media: Three E’s please, 13 May 2013.

See Mike Shanahan’s full research paper or a four-page summary.

Filed under: Asia, China, Climate Change, Drylands, East Africa, Environment, Food security, ILRI, India, Kenya, LivestockFutures, PA, Pastoralism, Policy, Report, South Asia Tagged: CCAFS, CGIAR, IIED, Mike Shanahan, National Geographic, New York Times, Polly Ericksen

Camels cover dozens of kilometres in search of water; average distances to watering points in the outskirts of Marsabit and Moyale, in the upper east corner of Kenya, run into dozens of kilometres (photo by Ann Weru/IRIN www.irinnews.org).

‘Camels are known for their ability to travel long distances across the desert without water.

‘But they’re also becoming an increasingly important source of milk for people in drought-prone regions. That includes East African countries like Kenya, where camel numbers have skyrocketed over the past few decades.

‘But introducing camels—or any species—to a new region, could mean bringing in new diseases.

‘The St. Louis Zoo has been studying camel diseases in Kenya to help assess their risks.’

A couple of years ago, Margaret Kinnaird, the executive director of the Mpala Research Centre in central Kenya ‘began a project on camel health with wildlife veterinarian Sharon Deem, who directs the Institute for Conservation Medicine at the Saint Louis Zoo.

Camels may have some diseases that, as the human population reaches for camel milk, these diseases could be passed to them,” Deem says.

Deem says a growing number of Kenyans are drinking camel milk—most of it unpasteurized. “These are estimates, but we really believe that up to 10 percent of Kenya’s 40 million people—so we’re talking four million people—probably drink unpasteurized camel milk,” Deem says.

Camels aren’t native to Kenya. But Margaret Kinnaird estimates that over the past 30 years, their number has grown to something on the order of three million animals. . . .

‘Amos Omore of the International Livestock Research Institute in Nairobi says unlike cattle and goats, camels can keep producing substantial quantities of milk under drought conditions—which climate scientists predict will become more severe and frequent in Kenya the future.

So I would imagine that given climate change, the role of camels is bound to be even more important than it has been before for those who live in these areas,” Omore says.

‘Sharon Deem says with camels becoming more common in Kenya—and significant as a source of nutrition—it’s critical to find out what diseases they might be spreading. . . .

‘Deem says the testing didn’t turn up much brucellosis or trypanosomiasis. But almost a third of the camels—and more than half the ticks—tested positive for Q fever, a bacterial disease that can be fatal in humans. “So we really feel that Q fever in camels could be very important in this region,” Deem says.

‘Deem says the next step will be to take a closer look at Q fever and how it’s affecting livestock, people, and wildlife. She also wants to keep working with Kenyan ranchers on what she calls “camel 101”—what they can do to keep their camels healthy.’

Read the whole article, and listen to the podcast, at St Louis Public Radio: Why is the Saint Louis Zoo tackling camel diseases in Kenya?, 10 May 2013.

Filed under: Animal Diseases, Camels, Dairying, Disease Control, East Africa, Health (human), ILRI, Interview, Kenya, MarketOpps, Pastoralism, Zoonotic Diseases Tagged: Amos Omore, Q fever, St Louis Public Radio

Herding cattle in Kenya (photo on Flickr by davida3 [Davida De La Harpe]).

‘The [Kenya] government has unveiled a plan to improve trade in livestock by vaccinating 61 million livestock in the next financial year.

‘According to budget estimates released on Thursday, the animals will be vaccinated against foot and mouth disease and other trade-sensitive diseases.

‘Measures will also be put in place to strengthen disease surveillance and introduce an advanced reporting system using Digital Pen Technology.

‘Kenya has in recent years been trading in live animals, which are exported mostly to the Middle-East.

‘It has also been striving to create disease-free zones to improve on the marketability of its meat and meat products in Europe which has a stringent regime for products that are allowed into that market.

‘So far, parts of Coast region have been classified as disease-free zones and are used as holding grounds for cattle. . . .

The government has planned to reach 5.1 million pastoralists through field days, shows, farm visits and exhibitions, and rehabilitate 7,500 denuded rangelands.

In the year, 21 abattoirs will be constructed and commissioned and 260 farmers’ groups supported with value addition facilities in centres along the milk corridors. Stakeholders in leather industry totalling 440 will be trained on value addition.

. . . [A]griculture officials say Kenya could make as much as Sh1.6 billion annually if trypanosomiasis was eradicated in the country.

Dr Steve Kemp, leader of the animal Biosciences Program at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), headquartered at Kabete, Nairobi, observed that ‘in tsetse infested areas, trypanosomiasis reduces the output of meat and milk by a half and was a threat to livestock production.

‘“Use of the right dosage is crucial in treating the disease. Unscrupulous traders who interfere with the drugs to [sell] more and earn more are not helping to contain the disease but are contributing to resistance to drugs,” Dr Kemp said.

The scientists spoke during a meeting with journalists at the Institute’s headquarters during a briefing on breakthroughs in research on diseases of livestock and people in developing countries.

They cited shortage of enough data to inform policy on best ways to control and treat diseases [as] the main challenge facing efforts to reduce human and animal infection rates.

Agriculture Permanent Secretary, Dr Romano Kiome admitted that trypanosomiasis still posed serious challenges to livestock production hence the need to build local capacity of Kenyan scientists to update relevant data that can help fight off the disease.

The PS who is also ILRI’s board member said the country cannot accumulate data without scientists coming to carry out research aimed at addressing challenges bedevilling this country.

“It is absolutely necessary we build data. Let’s support our scientists. The government has extended retirement age for scientists to 65 years besides other benefits as part of a deliberate strategy to give them ample time to do research,” said Dr Kiome.

He said Kenya was among the few countries with a fully-fledged trypanosomiasis research institute.

“We welcome research as we make great strides to combat this disease and improve livestock production. The global partners are important in helping Kenya achieve its development goals,” said the PS.

Read the whole article at Daily Nation (Kenya): State to vaccinate 61 million livestock to boost production, by Mwaniki Wahome and Dennis Odunga, 5 May 2013.

Filed under: Animal Health, Biotech, Cattle, Diagnostics, Disease Control, East Africa, ILRI, Kenya, Markets, PA, Pastoralism, Vulnerability Tagged: Daily Nation (Kenya), Romano Kiome, Steve Kemp, Trypanosomiasis

Former US Vice President Al Gore speaking at the Hunger, Nutrition, Climate Justice Conference in Dublin, 16 Apr 2013. CGIAR CEO Frank Rijsberman (second from left) looks on. Read more about this event. Photo credit: Vanessa Meadu/CCAFS.

‘What happens when some of the world’s thought leaders in hunger, nutrition and climate justice meet with innovators working at the frontlines of climate change in developing countries? At the Hunger, Nutrition and Climate Justice conference in Dublin yesterday, these pairings helped bring lofty theories down to earth, infusing discussions on rights, risk, knowledge and empowerment with touching and inspiring examples from around the world.’

Here’s what one participant said about ‘risk’:

‘William Ole Seki Laitayock, a pastoralist from the Ngorongoro area of Tanzania, explained that the Maasai culture, which revolves around cattle, is under threat due to competing commercial interests (mining, agriculture, tourism) that drive them off land or prevent them from moving freely. Climate change only aggravates this.

Laitayock explained that policies and interests that constrain the mobility and movement of pastoralists undermine their main tactic for staying resilient.

Maasai herding his cattle in Tanzania (photo on Flickr by Saadiq Rodgers-King).

‘Many countries are a long way from looking at their economic development strategies through the lens of climate change vulnerability — but this is what is needed. . . .’

Jimmy Smith, director of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, agrees. He attended the Dublin conference and recently presented this overview of the history of our livestock-human relations: Taking the long livestock view, Jan 2013.

See also ILRI’s Shirley Tarawali, director of Institutional Planning and Partnerships, on Options for enhancing resilience in pastoral systems, Feb 2012.

And see ILRI scientist Polly Ericksen on Mapping hotspots of climate change and food insecurity across the global tropics, Mar 2011.

Read the whole article on the CCAFS Blog: Risks, rights, knowledge and empowerment: Connecting the dots, 16 Apr 2013.

Read a previous article about this conference on ILRI’s Clippings Blog: Hunger-nutrition-climate: Can the ‘centre’ hold? Is ‘climate-smart’ agriculture the answer?, 16 Apr 2013.

For more information, go here. Follow the conference on Twitter by searching for #HNCJ.

Watch a short (3.32-minute) animated video from Ireland, a country that should know, on modern links between great hunger and climate change.

Filed under: Climate Change, CRP7, Event, Food security, PA, Pastoralism, Vulnerability Tagged: HNCJ, Ireland, Jimmy Smith, Polly Ericksen, Shirley Tarawali

Typical degradation of rangelands in Uganda’s cattle corridor

Researchers from the Department of Animal Science in Makerere University were excited, and with good reason, as
they surveyed pasture land that had been corralled off in Nakosongala in the cattle corridor of Uganda. The team had been looking at options to improve livestock water productivity (LWP) in the Nile Basin. To their surprise, a carpet of solid vegetation now covered the expanse of land, affirming their Ethiopian colleague’s suggestion that corralling cattle every night over a two-week period would allow the desertified grassland to recover.

This simple solution was a breakthrough on a problem that had eluded ecologists and put livestock keepers under scrutiny for their role in accelerating land degradation. The completely degraded and desertified pasture land in Nakosongala had been the subject of repeated rehabilitation efforts, which failed when large termite populations destroyed young grass seedlings. Soil erosion resulting from this degradation caused nearby water sources to become heavily silted and impaired.

This outcome story from research supported by the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF) explains how this intervention demonstrates the importance of taking an ecosystems approach to understanding ecological shifts. Upon seeing the results, pastoralists were inspired to take collective action to restore grassland, and this collective action has spilled over to other initiatives that require community engagement and cooperation.

Download the story

More CPWF outcome stories

Filed under: Animal Production, Cattle, CRP5, Livestock, Livestock Systems, Nile Basin, Pastoralism, PLE, Uganda Tagged: CPWF, termites

Serengeti tree (photo credit: Jeff Haskins).

‘In the great plains of northern Tanzania, close to the world-famous Serengeti National Park, a bitter row has broken out over an attempt to designate 1,500sqkm of Loliondo District as a game-controlled area.

‘The Maasai herdsmen in the area say their cattle cannot survive without access to traditional dry-season grazing in the area. The government says the land is needed as a wildlife corridor between the Serengeti and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Besides, the Minister for Natural Resources told the press, 2,500sqkm had already been, as he put it, “released to the local population”; the rest would be used for conservation purposes for the benefit of the nation.

‘Typical of recent land-grab controversies, this row involves the use of rangelands rather than farmlands. While farmers can show quite clearly that their lands are being used, semi-arid grasslands in areas like Loliondo cannot support animals year-round, so surveys often show the areas lying apparently empty.

‘Such tracts of land are often attractive for commercial agriculture — in Ethiopia, for instance, a number of controversial large-scale agricultural concessions have been granted along the Awash River. But the Loliondo dispute is not about commercial agriculture; it’s a so-called “green grab”, where access to land is lost for conservation purposes. . . .

‘Here, one widely accepted good — the right of people to continue using their traditional lands — has collided with another — the need to conserve nature and biodiversity. . . .

‘Kenya’s new constitution, adopted in 2010 . . . offers what is to be called “community land” to any group formed on the basis of ethnicity, culture or shared interest.

Stephen Moiko, of the International Livestock Research Institute, told IRIN that a key difference this time is that the initiative will come from the group. “It’s possible for communities to come up together and, through a legal process, obtain ownership of key resources which they depend on for their livelihoods, and it has legal mechanisms to protect that land from alienation. I think the nice thing about this new provision is that it recognizes the role of communities as owners and protectors and users of local resources.”. . .’

Read the whole article at IRIN: Balancing conservation and people’s access to land, 4 Apr 2013.

Filed under: Biodiversity, Drylands, East Africa, Environment, Ethiopia, ILRI, Kenya, PA, Pastoralism, PLE, Tanzania, Vulnerability, Wildlife Tagged: IRIN, Maasai, Serengeti, Stephen Moiko

Ethiopian rangeland (photo credit: ILRI/Dave Elsworth).

‘Cotton, sugar, palm oil… you name it. Most governments in the developing world believe such plantation cash crops must be a better use of land, and must deliver greater economic returns, than cattle pastures. That’s what most of the current land grabs in Africa are about. That’s why the World Bank calls the continent’s millions of square kilometres of unfenced savanna “the world’s last large reserve of underused land”.

‘But are the great grasslands really “underused”? . . .

There have been remarkably few analyses of what economists term the “opportunity costs” of big irrigation schemes. Of how they stack up against the pastoral alternative? So the findings of a new investigation from Ethiopia could, and certainly should, reverberate across Africa.

‘Ethiopia’s government has high ambitions for economic development, but sometimes appears to have less regard for herders. . . .

‘Is this long-standing land grab worth it? Does it bring development? A new economic analysis of the valley from Roy Behnke and Carol Kerven of Imperial College London, for the International Institute for Environment and Development, called Counting the Costs, says not. . . .

‘[T]he authors find that, in the Awash valley, revenues per hectare are higher on areas still devoted to livestock than they are for either sugar or cotton plantations. Sugar cane farming, the more profitable of the two, only matches the returns from livestock one year in four.

‘Behnke and Kerven conclude that, here at least, “pastoralism is consistently more profitable than either cotton or sugar… while avoiding many of the environmental costs associated with large-scale irrigation projects.”

‘Not only do the giant irrigation schemes, behind their high fences, fail to deliver cash, they also damage soils, undermining the future productivity of the land. . . .

The lessons here matter for the whole of the continent. As Behnke and Kerven put it: “The Awash valley illustrates what lies in store for pastoral areas, if African governments pursue a policy of modernised agriculture by displacing mobile livestock production.”

Read the whole article by Fred Pearce in the (excellent) Agriculture and Ecosystems Blog: Choosing crops over cattle: Are African governments taking pastoralism seriously?, 19 Mar 2013.

Read the paper by Roy Behnke and Carol Kerven published by the International Institute for Environment and Development: Counting the cost: Replacing pastoralism with irrigated agriculture in the Awash valley, north-eastern Ethiopia, Climate Change Working Paper No 4, Mar 2013.

Filed under: Article, Drylands, East Africa, Environment, Ethiopia, PA, Pastoralism, Policy, Vulnerability Tagged: Agriculture and Ecosystems Blog, Fred Pearce, IIED, Roy Behnke

A flock of Makhi Cheeni goats near Hasilpur, Bahawalpur, Pakistan (photo credit: ILRI/M Sajjad Khan).

‘The US Agency for International Development (USAID), the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), and the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC) launched a new project to expand the use of modern technologies in Pakistan’s agriculture sector.

‘PARC Chairman Dr Iftikhar Ahmad said that with the strengthening of relations between CIMMYT and PARC, country’s agriculture sector will boost and particularly enhance wheat and maize production during a high level foreign CIMMYT delegation visit to NARC Campus headed by Dr Tom Lumpkin.

‘The PARC chairman also earmarked site for Establishment of CIMMYT office in Pakistan at NARC Islamabad PARC and the Mexico-based CIMMYT announced the launching of the four-year $30 million Agricultural Innovation Project (AIP) in Islamabad. . . .

The project will also include expertise from sub-awardees International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), World Vegetable Centre (AVRDC), International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), University of California (UC), David and PARC. . . . CIMMYT will be the primary implementing partner and prime grantee, managing and taking responsibility for the overall program and overseeing the cereal systems portfolio. The ILRI will manage and support the livestock portfolio, while AVDRC will play a similar role in annual horticulture, IRRI will do for rice, and UC-Davis will have responsibility for human resources development and perennial horticulture. . . .

‘Currently, Pakistan’s agricultural sector is growing at a much slower pace than other sectors. “Pakistan’s agricultural productivity has fallen behind comparable countries with similar agro-ecologies,” said CIMMYT Director General Thomas Lumpkin. “There is a tremendous potential for growth, but we must act now.”. . .’

Read the whole article in the Daily Times (Pakistan): Project launched for usage of modern technologies in agri sector, 12 Mar 2013.

The Pakistan Observer also covered this story: New US-sponsored project to help modernize Pakistan’s agriculture, 12 Mar 2013.

Filed under: Dairying, Drylands, Feeds, ILRI, Intensification, Launch, PA, Pakistan, Pastoralism, Project, Small Ruminants, South Asia Tagged: AIP, AVDRC, CIMMYT, IRRI, Pakistan Agricultural Research Council, Thomas Lumpkin, USAID

Watch this new provocative 22-minute TedTalk by Allan Savory on ‘How to green the world’s deserts and reverse climate change’.

Alan Savory, a Zimbabwean-born biologist/ecologist and rangelands specialist, gives environmentalists pause in a recent TedTalk, published 4 Mar 2013, on the ‘cancer’ of desertification of the world’s drylands, which make up some two-thirds of the Earth’s surface.

‘Desertification is a fancy word for land that is turning to desert’, Savory begins in this quietly powerful talk. Savory has devoted his life to stopping it. He now believes he has evidence that a surprising factor can protect grasslands and even reclaim degraded land that was once desert.

The factor is your old-fashioned cattle, sheep and goat herds — the very animals vilified by generations of range ecologists arguing that domesticated animals cause, not stop, desertification.

‘We know that desertification is caused by livestock’, Savory begins, ‘mostly by cattle, sheep and goats overgrazing the plants, leaving the soil bare and giving off methane [a greenhouse gas]. Almost everybody knows this, from Nobel Laureates to golf caddies, or was taught it, as I was.’

In the dusty environments of Zimbabwe, when he grew up, Savory says, ‘I loved wildlife and so I grew up hating livestock because of the damage they were doing. And then my university education as a biologist reinforced my beliefs.

‘Well, I have news for you. We were once just as certain that the world was flat. We were wrong then and we are wrong again.’

Savory’s re-education, he says, began when he moved to the United States and noted degraded rangelands that had not had any livestock on them for many decades. ‘I began looking at all the research plots I could over the whole of the western United States where cattle had been removed to prove it would stop desertification, but I found the opposite. . . . .

‘Clearly, we have never understood what is causing desertification, which has destroyed many civilizations and now threatens us globally. . . .’

‘What we had failed to understand . . . [was that the soil and the vegetation of grasslands] had developed with very large numbers of grazing animals. And that these grazing animals developed with ferocious pack-hunting predators. Now, the main defence against pack-hunting predators is to get into herds. And the larger the herd, the safer the individual.

‘Large herds dung and urinate all over their own food area and they have to keep moving. And it was that movement that prevented the over-grazing of plants, while the periodic trampling ensured good cover of the soil, as we see where a herd has passed. . . .

‘We cannot reduce animal numbers to rest [the land] more without causing desertification and climate change. We cannot burn [the land] without causing desertification and climate change.

‘What are we going to do? There is only one option . . . and that is to do the unthinkable and to use livestock, bunched and moving, as a proxy for former herds and predators and mimic nature. . . .’

‘Ninety-five per cent of the [Horn of Africa] land can only feed people from animals. I remind you that I am talking about most of the world’s land, here, that controls our fate, including the most violent region of the world, where only animals can feed people from about 95 per cent of the land.

‘What we are doing globally is causing climate change, as much as, I believe, fossil fuels and maybe more than fossil fuels. . . .

‘But worse than that, [what we are doing] is causing hunger, poverty, violence, social breakdown and war. And as I’m talking to you, millions of men, women and children are suffering and dying.’

‘And if this continues, we are unlikely to be able to stop the climate changing even after we have eliminated the use of fossil fuels.

‘I believe I’ve shown you how we can work with nature, at very low cost, to reverse all this.

‘We are already doing so on about 15 million hectares on 5 continents. And people who understand far more about carbon than I do calculate that . . .  if we do what I am showing you here, we can take enough carbon out of the atmosphere and safely store it in grassland soils for thousands of years. And if we just do that on about half the world’s grasslands, we can take us back to pre-industrial levels [of human-generated greenhouse gas emissions], while feeding people.

‘I can think of almost nothing that offers more hope for our planet, for your children, for their children and all of humanity.’

Filed under: Cattle, Climate Change, Drylands, Environment, Food security, Forages, Goats, PA, Pastoralism, Presentation, Sheep, Small Ruminants, Soils, USA, Vulnerability, Wildlife Tagged: Allan Savory, Holistic range management, TedTalk, Zimbabwe

Cattle herders at Goraye in Ethiopia’s lowland Oromiya region (photo on Flickr by Andrew Heavens).

‘The drylands of East Africa are home to millions of pastoralists, herders who move from place to place in search of water and pasture for their livestock. Drought years are tough for these families, who depend on their animals—cows, goats, sheep and camels—for both food and income. In a drought, pasture and water become much harder to find, and the livestock can weaken and die.

‘Now, climate change is making matters worse. Seasonal rains are becoming less predictable, and droughts more frequent and more severe. . . .

‘[W]ith climate change, pastoralists have less time to recover and rebuild their herds between dry spells. This leaves them vulnerable, and subsequent droughts can threaten their very survival. Moreover, when everyone in the community is suffering at the same time, it becomes harder for them to help each other through the crisis.

‘In 2008, USAID began supporting new programs to insure East African pastoralists against the loss of livestock in case of serious drought, thereby building the resilience of these vulnerable communities.

A new product—index-based livestock insurance (IBLI)—is being developed and tested in the Marsabit district of northern Kenya and the adjacent Borana region of southern Ethiopia. In these areas, pastoralists are raising over 18 million cows, goats and sheep. . . .

‘In most of East Africa . . . insurance and similar types of risk management tools are not available to vulnerable pastoralists or smallholder farmers. . .

Without insurance, herders’ families have little protection against the hunger and poverty that can come as a result of a significant drought,” says Andrew Mude, a researcher with the International Livestock Research Institute who has been working to develop risk management instruments for pastoralists in northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia. “Livestock that does not perish in the drought is often sold at rock-bottom prices, just so families can survive. Such distress sales may drop the herd sizes below a sustainable level from which it becomes difficult to recover, and the family becomes destitute.”

‘Many other households see their margin for coping with loss reduced, and they are left precariously vulnerable to the next dry spell. While humanitarian assistance is critical in stemming loss of human life in extreme shocks such as droughts, it has been less effective in preventing loss of livestock or other assets.

‘Enter NASA

‘The IBLI insurance program is one of several pilots USAID is supporting under the Assets and Market Access Collaborative Research Support Program (AMA CRSP). IBLI relies on NASA satellite data, which is free to the public, to show the health of local vegetation. Severe drops in greenness measured by the satellites indicate a drought is occurring. This drop in greenness closely correlates with higher livestock mortality as well. The satellite data is studied at agreed times during the year to determine whether the insurance will pay out to the pastoralists who purchased policies at the start of the season.

The IBLI product was developed by the International Livestock Research Institute in Nairobi, Kenya, in collaboration with AMA CRSP researchers from Cornell University and the University of California at Davis. IBLI contracts are issued by local insurance companies. Pastoralists decide how many camels, cattle, sheep or goats they want to insure, and the price varies from place to place depending on the risks. In Ethiopia, it costs about $6 to insure a goat, and $41 to insure a cow.

Index insurance products for weather risks are new, and few insurers in developing countries know how to design them.

‘“USAID and other donor support was critical for research, design and outreach necessary to get the IBLI product on the market,” says Mude. “Local insurance companies and other private-sector players are also critical for implementation and long-term sustainability. Local insurance companies offer the insurance product for sale, often in collaboration with microfinance institutions, input suppliers and mobile telephone companies that are doing business in rural areas.”. . .

‘The IBLI product was first sold in northern Kenya in 2010, and in southern Ethiopia in 2012. Insurance is a new concept to most of the pastoralist communities, and so effective outreach and education are key factors of the program’s success.

Pastoralists who heard about the livestock insurance were keen to understand it,” said Birhanu Taddesse, the Ethiopia project coordinator at the International Livestock Research Institute. “They were asking how commercial insurance works, and how it can help them in times of distress.”

‘This year, Ethiopian pastoralists in seven districts bought 270 policies. Kenyan pastoralists bought 216 policies, insuring 75 camels, 193 cows and 1,131 sheep and goats. . . .

‘Despite these successes, insurance alone is not enough. For pastoralists in East Africa, resilience to drought will also depend on improving traditional coping strategies, like storing water and seeking good pasture. Pastoralists will also need to use new risk-reduction measures, like better managing herds, improving animal health, enhancing grazing lands and accessing new piped water networks.

‘USAID is supporting a complimentary set of interventions aimed at keeping vulnerable populations in the Horn of Africa on their feet: strengthening livestock value chains and expanding them to include products like fodder, milk and leather so that pastoralist communities get higher and more predictable incomes from their animals. Those involved in the insurance projects say that the emergence of these pilot policies is just one piece of a larger puzzle of sustainability and resilience in the region—but a critical one.’

Read the whole article by Nora Fermat USAID Frontlines: East Africa’s dryland herders take out a policy for survival, January/February 2013.

Filed under: Drought, Drylands, East Africa, Ethiopia, Geodata, ILRI, Insurance, Kenya, PA, Pastoralism, Project, Vulnerability Tagged: Andrew Mude, Birhanu Taddesse, IBLI, USAID, USAID Frontline

An artist’s rendition of the next Landsat satellite, the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) that will launch in Feb 2013 (photo credit: NASA). The Landsat program is the longest continuous global record of Earth observations from space—ever. Since its first satellite went up in the summer of 1972, Landsat has been looking at our planet. The view of Earth that this 40-year satellite program has recorded allows scientists to see, in ways they never imagined, how the Earth’s surface has transformed, over time.

Michael Baron, of the UK’s Institute for Animal Health, blogs this week on Global Food Security, a new UK program uniting the country’s main public funders of food-related research, about a new insurance project led by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), in Nairobi, Kenya.

‘. . . For most such small farmers and livestock keepers [in the developing world], there has until recently been no insurance to help them weather the vagaries of the weather, because there was no way for the insurers to check on actual losses.

‘In the absence of insurance to share the risks, such farmers tend to be very risk averse, even if that means not trying out new crops, or new breeds of cattle or sheep. Because they cannot afford to try new things, improvements in agricultural productivity happen slowly, if at all, which is very bad if we are all trying hard to boost global food security.

‘Recently, people like the World Bank, the UN and the World Food Programme have been looking to get around this problem by using ‘index-based insurance . . ., which . . . come up with an index that links recorded weather in an area to average harvests.

‘Farmers can then take out insurance, essentially, against the index being low. If the index goes below a certain cut off, there is a payout. As it goes lower, there is a bigger payout. The actual loss to each farmer does not have to be measured, the process is transparent, everyone is happy. This kind of insurance, only introduced in 2003, has become increasingly popular.

‘So far so good, as long as you have a lot of weather stations. In large parts of Africa, the only weather stations are in the towns, where they aren’t much use in saying how the weather has been in the rural areas.

This problem, of how to create index-based agricultural insurance in countries with limited infrastructure, has been recently tackled by economists and agricultural scientists working at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Nairobi, Kenya.

They have come up with a rather clever solution. They realised that for nearly 30 years NASA has had satellites taking pictures as they pass over Africa—pictures from which they have been deriving useful data such as the density and spread of vegetation. For poor livestock keepers, the measure of vegetation is a measure of food availability for their animals, which is a good measure of how much milk and meat they are going to have, and how well their animals are growing.

All the satellite data are freely available, so the people at ILRI used it to develop an index that related this measure of how much vegetation there was after each rainy season with sales records from the local livestock markets and came up with an index-based livestock insurance (IBLI), which they have been running in a pilot project in the arid parts of northern Kenya.

They used local people to help spread information about IBLI, and even developed games (PDF) to help teach local livestock keepers about how the insurance worked. So far, the pilot has been a significant success story, and they are looking to expand the concept to other countries in the area. . . .

Read the whole blog at Global Food Security: From insecurity to food security, 17 Sep 2012.

Visit the Index-Based Livestock Insurance blog.

About the animal disease research of blog author Michael Baron and ILRI veterinary epidemiologist Jeffrey Mariner
Michael Baron works at the Institute for Animal Health UK) researching the basic biology of rinderpest and peste des petit ruminants (PPR), two important diseases of livestock affecting primarily animals in developing countries. He leads research to develop rapid pen-side diagnostics and improved vaccines for PPR, as well as studying the basic biology of the virus. See previous blog posts on this ILRI Clippings blog about ILRI researcher Jeffrey Mariner and the eradication of rinderpest; Mariner is also now working with a small team at ILRI on PPR; he is developing a thermostable vaccine for PPR and designing ways to disseminate, using lessons he and others learned from their work to help eradicate rinderpest.

Filed under: CRP11, Drought, Drylands, East Africa, Ethiopia, Food security, Geodata, ILRI, Insurance, Kenya, PA, Pastoralism, PLE, PPR, Vulnerability Tagged: Global Food Security Blog, IBLI, Jeffrey Mariner, Rinderpest

Tom Olaka, a community animal health worker in Karamajong, northern Uganda, was part of a vaccination campaign in remote areas of the Horn of Africa that drove the cattle plague rinderpest to extinction in 2010 (photo credit: Christine Jost).

Fred Pearce writes in New Scientist about How African herders rid the planet of a disease, citing a veterinary epidemiologist named Jeffrey Mariner, who works in the Nairobi animal health laboratories of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) (13 Sep 2012).

‘Out in the bush, scientists should be humble and bow to the greater knowledge of locals. A paper out today tells the story of how rinderpest—a cattle plague that brought down empires and caused some of Africa’s worst famines—was finally eradicated, in May last year.

‘According to Jeffrey Mariner of Tufts University in North Grafton, Maryland [and now at ILRI]—one of the key players in the eradication—it was achieved by using the expertise of local cattle herders rather than the floundering efforts of outsiders. He and his colleagues advocate applying this “barefoot” strategy to other animal diseases. . . .

‘[After many false starts by international organizations,] Mariner and other scientists developed a heat-resistant vaccine that needed no refrigeration and so could be kept in remote locations that did not have electricity.

Then—often despite opposition from official vets—they began recruiting cattle herders to wield the syringes.

‘The herders would walk for days in regions where vets in four-wheel drives seldom ventured. Most critical of all, says Mariner, they used their local knowledge of the disease and the movements of cattle to target vaccination drives. . . .

‘Mariner hopes to start work next year on distributing a new heat-resistant vaccine for the “goat plague”—or peste des petits ruminants—which is endemic in much of Africa, the Middle East and Asia. . . .’

Read the whole article in New Scientist: How African herders rid the planet of a disease (13 Sep 2012).

Read the ILRI News Blog about this: New analysis in ‘Science’ tells how world eradicated deadliest cattle plague from the face of the Earth, 13 Sep 2012.

Read the paper in Science (subscription required to read full text): Rinderpest eradication: Appropriate technology and social innovations, by Jeffrey Mariner, James House, Charles Mebus, Albert Sollod, Dickens Chibeu, Bryony Jones, Peter Roeder, Berhanu Admassu, Gijs van ’t Klooster, 14 September 2012, Vol. 337 no. 6100 pp. 1309–1312, DOI: 10.1126/science.1223805.

Read previous articles on the ILRI News and Clippings blogs about the eradication of rinderpest:

ILRI’s Jeff Mariner speaks on what he learned from the eradication of rinderpest–and his new fight against ‘goat plague’, 15 Sep 2012.

Goat plague next target of veterinary authorities now that cattle plague has been eradicated, 4 Jul 2011.

Deadly rinderpest virus today declared eradicated from the earth–’greatest achievement in veterinary medicine’, 28 Jun 2011.

After successful eradication of rinderpest, African researchers now focus on peste des petits ruminants, the most urgent threat to African livestock, 22 Nov 2010.

Why technical breakthroughs matter: They helped drive a cattle plague to extinction, 28 Oct 2010.

Filed under: Article, Biotech, Cattle, Disease Control, Epidemiology, Goats, ILRI, PA, Pastoralism, PPR, Sheep, Vaccines Tagged: Fred Pearce, Jeffrey Mariner, New Scientist, Rinderpest, Science

ILRI veterinary epidemiologist Jeff Mariner presents his research at a meeting of the World Animal Health Organisation (OIE) (photo credit: OIE).

Lauren Everitt of AllAfrica interviewed Jeffrey Mariner, a scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Nairobi, Kenya, about a current article he co-authored in Science (13 Sep 2012) on lessons learned in the eradication of rinderpest.

Mariner described how, while working at Tufts University, he tweaked a proven rinderpest vaccine to make it temperature stable so it could survive transport in Africa’s extreme temperatures—a critical development.

However, the scientist credits the eradication achievement to his team’s results-oriented focus, reliance on tried-and-true science and willingness to forge partnerships with local communities. He said he is taking the lessons learned from rinderpest and applying them to his newest challenge—tackling a disease killing off goats and sheep across Africa.

‘Most of us have heard of smallpox, the only other disease to be completely eradicated, but few people are as familiar with rinderpest. Could you describe the disease and why it was selected for eradication as opposed to foot-and-mouth disease, for example?’

Mariner: ‘It’s a German term so “rinder” is cattle and “pest” means plague, which translates to “cattle plague” in English. And it’s a highly fatal diarrheal disease so animals that were infected would generally die within a week … up to a 90 percent fatality rate. . . .

‘This is only the second disease in history to be completely eliminated, and the first ever livestock disease. Why was your team successful where others have failed?’

Mariner: ‘. . . We’re getting much smarter in two senses: One was how we delivered vaccines. We started to work through the community and local health workers. The other sense was about targeting our approach, thinking about the key populations for the transmission of rinderpest and then focusing our resources on those. . . .

If you do want to do global eradication, you have to do the hard places as well as the easy places. And having solutions for the most challenging places is the crux of eradication.

‘The first vaccine created for rinderpest worked, but it had to be refrigerated—making transport to rural African areas nearly impossible. What other false starts and challenges did you have to contend with?’

Mariner: ‘The vaccine we started with was an amazing vaccine . . . —it just had to be kept cold. Our idea was to take that vaccine and to just change the way it was freeze dried, effectively repackaging the vaccine. . . .

The challenge for us was that the idea was so simple. . . . [W]e actually had trouble generating attention for what we were doing. We had this solution to the problem but it wasn’t the kind of thing that got you in Science because it wasn’t some bizarre, novel approach. It was just a good, basic approach using an existing product and very focused on a solution. . . .

‘I’m applying the same approach to peste des petits ruminants (PPR), which is a disease that affects sheep and goats with the same issues as rinderpest, such as high mortality rates. I’ve taken that vaccine and used the same approach, and I got the same questions when applying for funding: Why are you using this old technology? If this was really going to work, wouldn’t someone have already done it by now? And I gave them the answer that I was told the same thing years ago and we eradicated rinderpest. . . .

‘From the article it’s clear that scientists relied on nomadic herders to help in eradicating rinderpest. Could you talk about the role they played and how scientists leveraged their knowledge?’

Mariner: ‘Their knowledge was key in two senses. One, they were very good at identifying rinderpest. It’s such an important disease for them that they had names for it. They could describe it. It was part of their oral history. The history would actually be handed down from fathers to sons about the different names of the disease. And you could talk to them about how it was behaving in the community, where it had been last year, where it was last week, and they could tell you where it was today. When we figured that out it was much easier for us to target the programs because we were able to use their information to know where we needed to focus. . . .

When we came up with the idea of training them to vaccinate, they were very receptive. They couldn’t dream of anything more exciting than going to a training course to vaccinate their own cattle. It was amazing. Although most of them weren’t literate, we were teaching them by demonstrating and step-by-step training and with some infographic materials. They were very interested and very good learners, and they handled the vaccine very well and were able to do those complicated steps, such as rehydrating the vaccine and using the proper time interval.

‘And because they were vaccinating their own cattle, they did it properly. . . .

‘In order to eradicate a disease you need widespread buy-in; people in diverse parts of the world must allow their livestock to be vaccinated. Did you meet with any pockets of resistance or groups that were reluctant to vaccinate their cattle? If so, how did you deal with them?’

Mariner: ‘. . . The area where we actually met resistance was in more conventional circles like veterinary services. Convincing them that they needed to hand over vaccination activities to illiterate herders was often a major policy challenge that we had to struggle with over the years. The veterinary profession is rather conservative, and there’s lots of talk about ethics—what you can hand over to who, and who can inject and those sorts of things. We had to contend with “I have a medical degree, and they don’t” and all those kinds of questions.

We were also trying to help people understand that what’ s appropriate in the developing world maybe isn’t appropriate in the first world, and what’s appropriate in the first world may not be appropriate in the developing world. If you insist on certain practices, you’re actually denying millions of people service. . . . And for us it was very clear that farmers all over the world could handle their own livestock and were doing a super job when they had training, so they should be given power to do that.

‘. . . Many of us have heard of avian flu and mad cow disease yet the eradication of rinderpest in 2011 went largely unnoticed. It could be argued that rinderpest has a larger impact on the human condition than some of these other diseases – any thoughts on why it received so little attention?’

Mariner: ‘. . . [Part of the reason is that the] international community, the animal health community, dropped the ball. When rinderpest was eradicated, this was a tremendous achievement, and it also showed that the animal health profession could really do something complicated and useful. But the major international players didn’t make proper use of the event. So a part of that is our fault as a profession—that we didn’t carry that message forward in a correct way and with enough enthusiasm about it.

One of the many problems that we had with rinderpest was that many times donors or governments would say that these countries don’t have the capacity to eliminate it. They would ask, “So why should we give them money when it’s going to be wasted?” With rinderpest they proved they could do it, they proved they could use the investment, but the message didn’t get carried on that they have that capacity.

‘What next? Now that you’ve eliminated rinderpest have you set your sights on eliminating another pestilence?’

Mariner: ‘We have. It’s peste des petits ruminants (PPR), also known as “goat plague.” There’s international interest in developing a progressive, controlled program. It’s a disease that’s high impact, and it’s also spreading. It’s across Africa, it’s across the Middle East and South Asia, it’s even reached to places like China in the last couple years, so it’s a disease that’s spreading. It affects small ruminants (sheep and goats), which are actually a very important species for the poor. Small ruminants are marketed much more easily so they have a lot more to do with household food security than cattle.

So we’re working on taking the lessons from rinderpest and developing those to help control and eventually eradicate PPR. I’ve been working in the lab to make the PPR vaccine thermally stable, and we have succeeded with that.

‘Now we’ll bring it into the field to look at different approaches to vaccination, similar to what we did with rinderpest, looking at how to involve the community and rural health workers in the remote areas and private practitioners. How do we combine all of those parties into public-private partnerships? And we’re starting to go back to Uganda and to Sudan again—I’m leaving for Sudan next week.

‘Where there any key lessons that you took from your work with rinderpest that you’re going to apply moving forward?’

Mariner: ‘The two situations are remarkably similar. PPR has a good vaccine that just needs to become more stable. The key issues are again how to do the vaccination, and what’s the right way to combine the community and the veterinarians and so that everyone works together to accomplish the task. The other is: which are the key populations that we need to vaccinate? How do we target the vaccination to get maximal impact? So those are the epidemiological and sociological research questions, if you like, and that’s really where we need to focus our efforts now. . . .’

Read the whole interview at AllAfrica: African herders help eradicate deadly livestock disease, 13 Sep 2012.

Read the ILRI News Blog about this: New analysis in ‘Science’ tells how world eradicated deadliest cattle plague from the face of the Earth, 13 Sep 2012.

Read the paper in Science (subscription required to read full text): Rinderpest eradication: Appropriate technology and social innovations, by Jeffrey Mariner, James House, Charles Mebus, Albert Sollod, Dickens Chibeu, Bryony Jones, Peter Roeder, Berhanu Admassu, Gijs van ’t Klooster, 14 September 2012, Vol. 337 no. 6100 pp. 1309–1312, DOI: 10.1126/science.1223805.

Read previous articles on the ILRI News Blog about the eradication of rinderpest:

Goat plague next target of veterinary authorities now that cattle plague has been eradicated, 4 Jul 2011.

Deadly rinderpest virus today declared eradicated from the earth–’greatest achievement in veterinary medicine’, 28 Jun 2011.

After successful eradication of rinderpest, African researchers now focus on peste des petits ruminants, the most urgent threat to African livestock, 22 Nov 2010.

Why technical breakthroughs matter: They helped drive a cattle plague to extinction, 28 Oct 2010.

Filed under: Article, Biotech, Disease Control, Epidemiology, Goats, ILRI, PA, Pastoralism, PPR, Sheep, Sudan, Uganda, Vaccines Tagged: AllAfrica, EU, Jeff Mariner, Rinderpest, Science, Tufts University

(Left) water gourd, Kenya, Northern Frontier District, Boran or Gubbra tribe, on loan from Gary K Clarke, Cowabunga Safaris; (right) calabash, Kenya, Maasai, on loan from Gary K Clarke, Cowabunga Safaris (photo credit: Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library / Betsy Roe).

A new book from the STEPS Centre, in the UK, takes a fresh look at the livestock sector in the Horn of Africa.

‘. . . The region is often in the headlines for all the wrong reasons: drought, famine, conflict and suffering. But this is only part of the story.

‘Looking at the regional centres and their hinterlands, where pastoralists operate, reveals a booming livestock export trade; the flourishing of the private sector; growing investment and expanding towns; and the emergence of a class of entrepreneurs commanding a profitable market. This is the livestock trade in the Horn of Africa, across Ethiopia, Somaliland, Somalia, Sudan and Kenya.

‘A new book, Pastoralism and Development In Africa: Dynamic Change at the Margins, highlights innovation and entrepreneurialism, cooperation and networking and diverse approaches which are rarely in line with standard development prescriptions.

‘Through 20 detailed empirical chapters, the book highlights diverse pathways of development, going beyond the standard “aid” and “disaster” narratives. . . .

‘Many successful development efforts at “the margins” often remain hidden, informal, sometimes illegal; and rarely in line with standard development prescriptions. If we shift our gaze from the capital cities to the regional centres and their hinterlands, then a very different perspective emerges. These are the places where pastoralists live. They have for centuries struggled with drought, conflict and famine. They are resourceful, entrepreneurial and innovative peoples. Yet they have been ignored and marginalised by the states that control their territory and the development agencies who are supposed to help them. This book argues that, while we should not ignore the profound difficulties of creating secure livelihoods in the Greater Horn of Africa, there is much to be learned from development successes, large and small.

Reviews
‘”In 2010 the African Union released the first continent-wide policy framework to support pastoralism and pastoralist areas in Africa. The policy draws on a central argument of this new book, being that innovative and dynamic changes are occurring in pastoralist areas in response to increasing livestock marketing opportunities, domestically, regionally and internationally, and these changes are providing substantial but often hidden economic benefits.”—Dr Abebe Haile Gabriel, Director, Department of Rural Economy and Agriculture, African Union Commission

‘”There is a rich array of case studies in this book, which capture the vitality and innovation of pastoral societies. They are a welcome antidote to the negativity that infects far too much of the discourse on pastoralism.—Hon. Mohamed Elmi, MP, Minister of State for Development of Northern Kenya and other Arid Lands

‘”This book is essential reading for anyone concerned with the future of pastoralism in Africa. In Ethiopia, pastoralism is a vital economic sector and essential for the country’s development. This book will provide important guidance for both policymakers and development practitioners.”—Hon. Ahmed Shide, MP, State Minister, Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, Ethiopia

“‘This book is exceptionally deep in the analysis of the conditions of the pastoralists and provides far-sighted and comprehensive options for improving their livelihoods within the context of country-specific reality and regional and global challenges. Understanding the resilience of pastoralists in the face of growing complex challenges moves us away from a focus on traditional coping strategies to innovative efforts which provide more robust and sustainable solutions for the livelihoods of pastoralists.”—Dr Luka Biong Deng, formerly National Minister for Cabinet Affairs of Sudan

‘”This is a candid and thought provoking scrutiny of some of the diverse, complex and often emotive issues around pastoral development and investment. The book is an important and timely resource as African countries embark on securing the future of pastoralists as espoused by the recently approved AU Policy Framework for Pastoralism in Africa.”—Dr Simplice Nouala, African Union Inter-African Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR)

‘”This book is a fascinating, timely collection of case studies by researchers, activists and policymakers (many of whom are African pastoralists themselves) . . . . By analyzing what pastoralists are actually doing (rather than dictating what they should be doing), the book will be of tremendous value to anyone with an interest in the future of pastoralists and pastoralism in the Greater Horn of Africa.”—Dorothy Hodgson, Professor, Department of Anthropology, Rutgers, State University of New Jersey

‘”. . . The book conveys the vigour, dynamism and adaptability of these arid and semi arid land populations, and their ability to embrace and exploit change, in a context of policies that too often constrain rather than enable.”—Katherine Homewood, Professor of Anthropology, University College London

‘”This timely and highly relevant publication challenges the prevailing view that there is no future for pastoralism in the Horn of Africa. . . . Its detailed case studies and fresh empirical evidence offer clear insights into a range of potential pathways for the development of these complex and uncertain environments.”—Ced Hesse, International Institute for Environment and Development, London

‘”This important book helps narrow the prevailing knowledge gap on pastoralism and pastoral development.”—Tezera Getahun, Executive Director, Pastoralist Forum Ethiopia

‘”This book, about one of the most diverse pastoral regions of the world, brings together many cutting-edge studies on the sustainability of pastoral development. The book provides cause for optimism as well as pause for thought, since pastoralism is evidently thriving in drylands that are also home to some of the world’s worst poverty. The book illustrates how sustainable pastoralist development depends on development partners doing what pastoralists have always done: managing complexity.”—Jonathan Davies, Coordinator, Global Drylands Initiative, IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature.”

Read more about the book: STEPS Centre: Pastoralism and Development In Africa: Dynamic Change at the Margins, edited by Andy Catley, Jeremy Lind and Ian Scoones, 9 Jul 2012.

Order the book online from Earthscan / Routledge. Paperback, £24.95 GBP. A discount of 20% is available until the end of 2012. Pastoralism and Development in Africa: Dynamic Change at the Margins, Jul 2012.

Read three recent policy briefs on pastoralism produced with support from the Association for the Strengthening of Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA) and conducted by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), the Resource Conflict Institute (RECONCILE), and Egerton University as the coordinating institution. The research goal was to make a significant contribution to understanding high priority regional policy issues and potential reforms that will favor improved and sustainable biodiversity conservation while enhancing livelihoods in pastoral areas of the Eastern and Central African region.

Drylands Development, Pastoralism and Biodiversity Conservation in Eastern Africa, ABCD series, Policy Brief No 1.

Payment for wildlife conservation in the Maasai Mara Ecosystem, ABCD series, Policy Brief No 2.

Tanzania: Wildlife and livestock need each other for prosperity, ABCD series, Policy Brief No 3.

Filed under: Books and chapters, Drylands, East Africa, Ethiopia, ILRI, Kenya, PA, Pastoralism, PLE, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Vulnerability, Wildlife Tagged: ABCD policy briefs, Andy Catley, ASARECA, Ian Scoones, Jeremy Lind, Somaliliand, STEPS Centre

Women herding camels in Kenya (photo on Flickr by Curt Carnemark/World Bank Photo Collection).

Polly Ericksen, a senior scientist with the People, Livestock and Environment Theme at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), announced to the ILRI community last Friday new funding from the European Union that will finance a three-year food security project that ILRI will conduct in Kenya’s drylands with the SNV Netherlands Development Organisation and the Kenya Livestock Marketing Council.

SNV made the announcement on its website earlier this week, saying that these partners ‘have been awarded EU funding of €1.8 million under the Kenya Rural Development Program. The three-year project focuses on securing long-term food security through boosting agricultural productivity, enabling better responses to drought and improving livelihoods in arid and semi-arid lands.

‘Aiming to improve pastoral livelihoods through sustainable market systems, the project will promote pastoral livelihoods diversification . . . .

‘The project will enable improved access and availability of fodder for 25,000 livestock keepers households and empower 1,000 female-led households through a more profitable camel milk trade. In addition, 25 vibrant livestock markets in arid areas will benefit from improved management including information flow. . . .

‘SNV has overall responsible for the project and will specifically take the lead for commercialisation of fodder production, commercialisation of camel milk, of strengthening livestock markets. ILRI is in charge of the development and dissemination of knowledge on livestock markets and climate change resilience. The Kenya Livestock Marketing Council will support policy dialogue and livestock markets on the ground.’

Read the whole article on the SNV website: EU to fund €1.8 million project on innovative market-based livestock systems in Kenya, 22 Jun 2012.

Filed under: Animal Feeding, Climate Change, Drought, Drylands, East Africa, Food security, ILRI, Kenya, Markets, PA, Pastoralism, PLE, Project, Vulnerability, Women Tagged: Camel milk, EU, Kenya Livestock Marketing Council, Polly Ericksen, SNV

ILRI is working with insurance companies to train livestock herders in Kenya’s northern drylands in the benefits and costs of a new index-based livestock insurance first made available in Marsabit District in 2010 (photo credit: ILRI/Andrew Mude).

CNN has published a major story on a major breakthrough—a project that is insuring never-before-insured livestock herders in Kenya’s remote northern drylands.

‘Wacho Yayo and his wife Dawe are used to seeing the plants shrivel around them, the earth crack and their cattle die. Every time a drought has hit this elderly couple’s village in northern Kenya they have had to rebuild their lives all over again.

‘”The last drought was bad,” 69-year-old Wacho says. “During the drought time there wasn’t even any water to drink. There was no food. The animals had nothing to eat. And there was only dust blowing. I felt very bad and I was very bitter. I wanted to run away but there was nowhere to run.” . . .

‘By then Wacho and Dawe had lost 10 of their 15 cows, but they danced too. They knew they would struggle to support their nine children without these animals but this drought was different—for the first time in their lives Wacho had taken insurance out on some of their cattle.

‘Shortly before the first leaf wilted from the heat, an insurance promoter had come to their small village offering livestock insurance. It was a new initiative that has been trialed in this part of Kenya. Wacho was skeptical—he’d never heard of insurance and he wasn’t sure that he would ever see his money again. After talking it through with Dawe he eventually decided to sign up and pay a premium for a few of his cows—he couldn’t afford to cover them all.

‘”This insurance is good,” he says, sitting on a stool outside his home, his surviving cattle listlessly tied up behind him.

‘Once the rains came 650 herders eventually received compensation for the loss of thousands of animals. Wacho and Dawe did not get enough to buy new cows but they did manage to buy some goats.

This initiative is run by the Nairobi-based organization, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). It is one of a growing number of micro-insurance schemes being rolled out in Africa. Backed by British and U.S. government development departments and the World Bank, there are plans to expand this project across northern Kenya and into southern Ethiopia. . .

‘When drought hits such remote and vast areas it is impossible to count all the dead animals, so this initiative uses satellite images to quantify the loss of foliage in each area. This then determines who should be compensated and by how much.

‘One of the biggest challenges of introducing insurance in remote rural villages is the lack of knowledge and understanding. This is where insurance promoters like Edin Ibrahim come in. As a farmer himself Ibrahim knows all about being ravaged by drought.

‘”Over 80%of our population are illiterates. Understanding this insurance issue was just too hard,” he explains. “But with the time and with the information in the language they understand and the values and importance, now they are getting it and catching up.”

‘”Micro-insurance for agriculture is something that farmers in the rest of the world have had access to for sometime,” says Challiss McDonough from the World Food Programme.

‘”African farmers, the poorest and smallest scale farmers are only just beginning to have access to [insurance] and their ability to do that can really help the agriculture sector to grow and become more productive.” . . .’

Read the whole story on CNN: Insurance helps Kenya’s herders protect against drought, 18 Jun 2012.

Watch the CNN 6-minute video on this project: Protecting farmers from drought.

Filed under: Drought, Drylands, East Africa, Ethiopia, Film and video, ILRI, Insurance, Kenya, PA, Pastoralism, PLE, Vulnerability Tagged: CNN, DFID, IBLI, World Bank

Football legend Raul Gonzalez, Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), learns while speaking to goat herders in Chad that protecting people’s livestock is essential for preventing them from falling into the danger zone during the current food crisis. Livestock will also be essential, the people say, for helping them to recover from the crisis afterwards. Chad is one of eight West African countries being hit hard by drought in the Sahel, a belt of semi-arid land south of the Sahara Desert that stretches across the whole of the north of the African continent. Some 13 million people in eight countries of the West African Sahel are facing a severe food crisis. In addition to Chad, these countries are Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal. (Photo on Flickr by FAO/Sia Kambou/European Union Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection.)

Mark Tran in the Guardian’s Global Development Blog gives an update on the deteriorating food situation across Africa’s Sahel region. He says that aid agencies are facing funding shortfalls to tackle hunger as political uncertainty as well as drought worsen the crisis for some 18 million hungry people.

‘. . . Relief agencies have been sounding the alarm for months about the effects of drought on the Sahel—a region stretching from the Atlantic to the Red Sea. The situation has been made worse by the knock-on effect of the Libyan uprising that has destabilised Mali. With the onset of the “lean season”—the next three months will be the driest and harshest period of the year—aid groups warn that the worst is yet to come.

For months now, families have been telling us they have next to nothing to eat,” said Justin Forsyth, chief executive of Save the Children. “In Niger, mothers have little or no food to feed their children. Our analysis now shows just how bad the situation has become and confirms our worst fears: a major emergency is now upon us.”

‘The UN says about 18 million people are affected by a drought and food crises in nine countries. Unicef warned in December last year that more than 1 million children would need life-saving treatment for severe acute malnutrition and appealed for $119.5m. The figure has since gone up, as conflict in Mali has forced 170,000 people from their homes, with some seeking refuge in neighbouring Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Niger. . . .’

Read the whole article at the Guardian‘s Global Development Blog: UN and NGOs appeal for Sahel aid as west Africa food crisis worsens, 12 Jun 2012.

Read an opinion piece by ILRI director general Jimmy Smith: Turning defeat into new destiny–Going beyond food aid in the Horn of Africa, 24 Jan 2012.

Visit the website of the CGIAR Research Program on Dryland Systems.

Read ILRI’s earlier blog reports
on this year’s food crisis in the Sahel
(06) 26 May 2012
Extreme hunger in East Africa and the Sahel: Building response systems that work.
(05) 24 Apr 2012
FEWS NET says rainfall in Africa’s eastern Horn may be below normal again this year.
(04) 30 Mar 2012
Oxfam on the West African food crisis that is building.
(03) 13 Feb 2012
Climatic conditions linked to Horn’s 2011 drought persist–could spell another food crisis.
(02) 03 Feb 2012
United Nations declares famine over in Somalia–but says millions still at risk.
(01) 30 Jan 2012
Flawed global food systems–not drought–cause of African famines.

Read about some livestock-based options/projects
to help Africa’s drylands peoples cope better with drought
(24) 07 Jun 2012
Foolhardy? Or just hardy? New project tackles climate change and livestock markets in the Horn.
(23) 07 Jun 2012
Saving the plains: ILRI research team wins Sustainability Science Award for its pastoral research in Masailand.
(22) 06 Jun 2012
Africa’s vast eastern and southern drylands get new attention–and support–from agricultural researchers.
(21) 05 Jun 2012
Supporting dryland pastoralism with eco-conservancies, livestock insurance and livestock-based drought interventions.
(20) 01 May 2012
New markets book showcases livestock insurance scheme that is helping Kenyan herders protect their marketable assets.
(19) 29 May 2012
Dry-season milk supplies to pastoral children improves their nutrition, development and health.
(18) 10 May 2012
Meat exports and livestock jobs could transform Kenya’s drought-stricken northern lands.
(17) 29 Apr 2012
Five ways to enhance agricultural markets in hungry regions of East and West Africa.
(16) 25 Apr 2012
Recurrent drought can encourage, not kill, pastoralism.
(15) 28 mar 2012
Women playing key role in pastoralist livelihood diversification.
(14) 20 Mar 2012
Livestock herding and resource management: Good (natural, rangeland) bedfellows.
(13) 15 Feb 2012
Policy workshop seeks sustainable practices to preserve livelihoods in Africa’s drylands.
(12) 06 Feb 2012
Belgian veterinary group message to Bill Gates: Herding livestock makes more sense than growing crops in arid lands.
(11) 19 Jan 2012
Putting a price on water: From Mt Kenya forests to Laikipia savannas to Dadaab drylands.
(10) 10 Jan 2012
Kenyan herders cope with drought by buying livestock insurance.
(09) 26 Oct 2011
Short films document first index-based livestock insurance for African herders.
(08) 25 Oct 2012
Livestock director and partners launch first-ever index-based livestock insurance payments in Africa.
(07) 22 Oct 2011
Remote Kenya livestock herders receive their first drought insurance payouts.
(06) 21 Oct 2011
Herders in drought-stricken northern Kenya get first livestock insurance payments.
(05) 24 Aug 2011
Prospects for greater agricultural investments in the Horn?
(04) 24 Aug 2011
Investments in pastoralism offer best hope for combating droughts in East Africa’s drylands–Study.
(03) 07 Aug 2011
Best ways to manage responses to recurring drought in Kenya’s drylands.
(02) 03 Jun 2011
In the crosshairs of hunger and climate change: New ILRI-CCAFS study maps the global hotspots.
(01) 22 Mar 2011
Climate change impacts on pastoralists in the Horn: Transforming the ‘crisis narrative’.

Filed under: Burkina Faso, Climate Change, CRP11, Directorate, Drought, Drylands, East Africa, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Food security, ILRI, Insurance, Kenya, LivestockFutures, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, PA, Pastoralism, PLE, Policy, Senegal, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda, Vulnerability, West Africa Tagged: 2012 Sahel Food Crisis, Guardian's Global Development Blog

A new CNN video—Protecting farmers against drought—describes the benefits of ILRI’s Index-Based Livestock Insurance (IBLI) scheme in Kenya’s Marsabit District, runtime: 5:44, 11 Jun 2012 (CNN Marketplace Africa).

Watch the video     Read the transcript

Some half a year after the drought that devastated large parts of the Horn of Africa broke towards the end of 2011, livestock herders in the drylands of northern Kenya speak out about the horror of that time, and their hopes that a new livestock insurance scheme will protect them against further livestock losses in the next, inevitable, drought.

In a new 6-minute video on CNN’s Marketplace Africa, several herders in Kenya’s Marsabit District tell reporter Nima Elbagir their stories of last year’s drought and how an insurance scheme piloted by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and backed by British and US government development departments and the World Bank is offering them hope for protection against the next drought.

WACHO YAYO, FARMER (through translator): The last drought was bad. During the drought time, there wasn’t even any water to drink. There was no food. The animals had nothing to eat. There was only dust blowing. I felt very bad and I was very bitter. I wanted to run away, but there was nowhere to run.

ELBAGIR (voice-over): Fifty-nine-year-old Wacho Yayo lost 10 of his 15 cows. These are the survivors. He can’t afford to replenish his herd, but thanks to livestock insurance that has been set up in this part of Kenya, he should afford to buy four new goats. . . .

Elbagir also interviewed leaders of an insurance company and a humanitarian organization working in the area.

SIMON CLAYTON, CEO, APA INSURANCE: The penetration of insurance in Kenya is only about 3 percent of the population. So the more we can grow and give access to insurance products for those uninsured people, the better it is for them. They can protect their assets, their families and their occupations for the future.

CHALLISS MCDONOUGH, WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME: Microinsurance for agriculture is something that farmers in the rest of the world have had access to for some time, but African farmers, the poorest and smallest . . . African farmers are only really beginning to have access to. And their ability to do that can really help the agricultural sector in Africa grow and become more productive.

What’s important to know, however, though, is that insurance by itself isn’t a magic bullet. It has to be combined with other forms of risk management, including access to credit, savings and other things that help the communities themselves become more resilient and more able to withstand a shock like a drought.’

A total of 650 herders received compensation for the loss of their animals last year. Now there are plans to expand this ILRI project across northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia.

ILRI’s technical partners in this project
Cornell University
Index Insurance Innovation Initiative
Syracuse University (Maxwell School)
University of Wisconsin (BASIS Research Program)

The implementing partners
Equity Insurance Agency
UAP Insurance Limited
Financial Sector Deepening (FSD) Kenya
Kenya Meteorological Department
Kenya Ministry of Development of Northern Kenya and other Arid Lands
Kenya Ministry of Livestock

The donor agencies
UK Department for International Development (DFID)
United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
World Bank

Read more about ILRI’s Index-based Livestock Insurance (IBLI) project below.

On the Index-Based Livestock Insurance Blog
IBLI Blog: Latest news: Livestock insurance – protecting Kenya’s pastoralists from drought, 11 Jun 2012.

On ILRI’s New Blog
Options to enhance resilience in pastoral systems: The case for novel livestock insurance, 22 Feb 2012.
Livestock director and partners launch first-ever index-based livestock insurance payments in Africa, 25 Oct 2011.
Herders in drought-stricken northern Kenya get first livestock insurance payments, 21 Oct 2011.

Watch two ILRI short films on this topic
Short films document first index-based livestock insurance for African herders, 26 Oct 2011.

On this ILRI Clippings Blog
Supporting dryland pastoralism with eco-conservancies, livestock insurance and livestock-based drought interventions, 5 Jun 2012.
Coping with drought: Assessing the impacts of livestock insurance in Kenya, 7 May 2012.
Of cell phones, satellites and livestock insurance in Kenya’s Chalbi Desert, 29 Feb 2012.
Kenyan herders cope with drought by buying livestock insurance, 10 Jan 2010.

Filed under: Drought, Drylands, East Africa, Film and video, ILRI, Insurance, Kenya, PA, Pastoralism, PLE, PovertyGender, Vulnerability Tagged: 2011DroughtInHorn, CNN, Cornell University, DFID, DroughtInHorn2011, Financial Sector Deepening (FSD) Kenya, IBLI, Index Insurance Innovation Initiative, Kenya Meteorological Department, Kenya Ministry of Development of Northern Kenya and other Arid Lands, Kenya Ministry of Livestock, UAP Insurance Limited, USAID, World Bank

If only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the tropical midday sun, what shall we say of Americans in Alabama and Kenya setting out to learn from, and support, sales of livestock in the hot and drying badlands extending across the Horn of Africa?

This is what Peter Little, of Emory University, and Polly Ericksen, at Kenya’s International Livestock Research Institute, (ILRI), and others at Kenya’s Pwani University and Ethiopia Addis Ababa University are working to do in a new four-year project ambitiously tackling both climate change and livestock markets in the drier, degraded and mostly neglected drylands of the Horn, occupied today mostly by bushes and shrubs, semi-desert grasses, dunes and rocks—and, of course, pastoral and agro-pastoral people and their livestock.

In 2011, the most severe drought in decades took a terrible toll on the rugged people and livestock of the Horn of Africa; pastoralist communities were among the hardest hit (photo on Flickr by Katherine Bundra Roux / International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Society).

In the midst of drought and conflict, and with precious little infrastructure or services to support them, the rugged livestock-herding peoples of Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya maintain a thriving livestock trade within the Horn. How do they do it? How do they get their animals to market? How do they manage to feed and water them along the way? How much do they get paid for their animals? Who are the middlemen? What roles do women play? These are some of the questions this new project aims to answer.

What is known is that the Muslim’s annual five-day pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca is what drives much of the livestock trade in Africa’s Horn, as some two million live animals from pastoral lands in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia are transported across the Red Sea into Saudi Arabia each year to be ritually sacrificed to feed the millions of pilgrims.

Anthropologist Peter Little, who directs a Program in Development Studies at Emory University (USA) and leads a USAID-supported Collaborative Research Support Project on Livestock and Climate Change; Little led a review of ILRI’s pastoral research in 2010–2011 (photo credit: Emory University).

‘“It’s big business, but it’s unclear how much small-scale livestock producers in East Africa really benefit from the growing demand for their products in the Middle East,” says Emory anthropologist Peter Little. . . .

‘Little, who has been studying the region’s pastoralists for three decades, recently received an additional $700,000 from the Livestock-Climate Change (LCC) Collaborative Research Support Program to continue working on a joint project in the region. The LCC program, based at Colorado State University, was established in 2010 through an agreement with the US Agency for International Development. . . .

‘“One thing we will be looking at is how the warming of East Africa is creating different kinds of disease vectors, affecting both livestock and humans,” says Little, who also directs Emory’s new Development Studies program. The project ultimately aims to increase income and food security in the extremely vulnerable Horn of Africa. The region is confronting yet another drought disaster and violent conflict between Kenya and Somalia. “It’s a challenge working in the Horn of Africa on many levels,” Little says. “But the research questions are exciting, and so is the potential to have an impact. . . .’

ILRI’s Polly Ericksen (photo by Anita Gosh). Ericksen has a background in environmental, anthropological and agricultural research, with recent experience in the vulnerability of food systems to global environmental change. Her chief research interests concern the interactions among human well-being, environmental services, land use change, and climate in the tropics.

With post-graduate degrees in economics (MS) and soil science (PhD), before coming to ILRI in 2010, Ericksen has worked for the Alternatives to Slash and Burn program at the tropical rainforest margins, for Catholic Relief Services, for the International Research Institute for Climate Prediction, at Columbia University, where she analyzed institutional and policy environments in which climate information will be applied and used in Africa, and for the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University.

ILRI’s Polly Ericksen agrees with Little on that. Ericksen is this week organizing and hosting at ILRI’s Nairobi campus more than 5o dryland experts from eastern and southern Africa, who are planning a new CGIAR Research Program on Dryland Agricultural Systems. This program will focus on two kinds of dryland systems, those that are better endowed and can be ‘intensified’ to increase food production and those that are highly vulnerable to shocks and require improved risk management and more sustainable and efficient use of scarce natural resources.

To some people’s surprise, the experts at Ericksen’s CGIAR and partner workshop appear to be agreeing that the latter, more vulnerable, drylands, far from being negligible locales for agricultural research, are actually promising in terms of making research impacts.

It appears from recent analyses’, says Ericksen, ‘that some of today’s dryland hotspots in the Horn and elsewhere have some of the greatest potential for research impacts.’

Read the whole article at Emory in the World Magazine: Tackling climate change and livestock markets in the Horn of Africa, spring 2012 issue.

Read more about the CGIAR Research Program on Dryland Systems and more on ILRI’s news blogs (below) about the three-day planning workshop for this program, which ends today:

ILRI News Blog: Africa’s vast eastern and southern drylands get new attention–and support–from agricultural researchers, 6 Jun 2012.

ILRI Clippings Blog: Supporting dryland pastoralism with eco-conservancies, livestock insurance and livestock-based drought interventions, 5 June 2012.

ILRI Clippings Blog: CGIAR Drylands Research Program sets directions for East and Southern Africa, 4 Jun 2012.

People, Livestock and Environment at ILRI Blog: Taming Africa’s drylands to produce food, 5 Jun 2012.

People, Livestock and Environment at ILRI Blog: Collaboration in drylands research will achieve greater impact, 5 Jun 2012.

Images of the CRP Dryland Systems inception workshop for East and southern Africa, 5-7 Jun 2012 are posted here on ILRI’s Flickr site.

Slide presentations made at the workshop are available on ILRI’s Slideshare site.

Filed under: Camels, Cattle, Climate Change, CRP11, Drought, Drylands, East Africa, Ethiopia, Goats, ILRI, Kenya, Markets, PA, Pastoralism, PLE, Project, Sheep, Somalia, Trade, Vulnerability Tagged: CRSP-LCC, Emory University, Peter Little, Polly Ericksen, USAID