This research team combines risk analysis from veterinary epidemiology and cost–benefit analysis to identify, test and adapt different options for animal disease control and food safety assurance that are more appropriate within context of developing countries.
 
The team addresses the animal-health related barriers to the access of poor, small-scale livestock keepers to local, national and/or regional markets. Specifically, it identifies, develops and evaluates animal disease control, surveillance and livestock commodity certification methods in order to assist livestock producers to meet animal health and food safety standards that often restrict access to markets.
 
This work draws attention to the high costs of compliance with existing sanitary and phytosanitary standards facing livestock producers in developing countries who wish to sell into rising export markets. It also evaluates, in selected cases, the costs and benefits of alternative procedures for equivalent levels of animal disease control proposed for developing countries.
 
Risk analysis from veterinary epidemiology is combined with analysis of the costs and benefits of different options and policies, including the implications for both direct and indirect impacts on the incomes of the poor. Such methods further provide the basis for improved pro-poor decision- and policy-making through the assessment of cost-effective animal health alternatives and allowing stakeholders to more effectively respond to zoonotic and emerging diseases that potentially reduce market opportunities, such as avian influenza and Rift Valley fever.
 
CONTACT
Dr Delia Grace
Team leader
Animal health, food safety and zoonoses
International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)
P.O. Box 30709-00100
Nairobi
KENYA
Phone: +254 20 422 3460
Fax: +254 20 422 3001
Email: d.grace @ cgiar.org