Targeting opportunities

Enabling innovation

The ILRI-IFPRI Joint program on Livestock (ILRI's Theme 3)

Biotechnology

People, livestock and the environment

Gains/impact

Milestones

Users

Collaborators

Outputs

• Enabling innovation

• Improving market opportunities

• How big is your neighborhood?

• Identifying barriers to entry to livestock input and output markets in South-East Asia

• Policy options promoting market participation among smallholder livestock producers

• Enabling Innovation Hierarchy of activities , Indicators and assumptions

• Evolution of milk production systems in tropical Latin America and its interrelationship with markets

• Farmer Field Schools-The Kenyan Experience

• Training of trainers manual for livestock Farmer Field Schools

• Careers

• African biosciences initiative to tackle poverty and reduce brain-drain

• Where are the poor?

• Mejoramiento de la Productividad de la carne, calidad, la inocuidad y el comercio de la carne vacuna en América Central (available only in Spanish)

• Resumen del Proyecto

• Taller de Planificación

• Resumen del Producto Básico

• Instituciones Involucradas

• Objectivo Principal

• Componentes

• Componente 1

• Componente 2

• Componente 3

• Usuarios y Beneficiarios

• Derechos de Propiedad Intelectual

• Plan de Trabajo

• Seguimiento, Supervisión y Evaluación

• Evaluación de Riesgos

• Hoja Informativa

• Publicaciones

• Equipo de Trabajo

• Galería de Imágenes

• Instituciones

• Trypanocide resistance in West Africa (BMZ)

• Project summary

• Partners

• Project newsletter

• Other project documents

• Student research projects

• Newsletter 1 - November 2002

• Newsletter 2 - January 2003

• Newsletter 3 - March 2003

• 2002 Planning Meeting Minutes

• Financial report

• Maize as food, feed and fertiliser in intensifying crop-livestock systems in East and Southern Africa

• Valuing alternative land-use options in the Kitengela wildlife dispersal area of Kenya

• Genetically improved dual-purpose cowpea

• Community-based irrigation management in Ethiopia

• Overview

• Research objectives

• Partners

• Methodology

• Key contacts

• Beneficiaries and impact

• Implementation and management

• Monitoring

• Integrated water and land managment research and capacity building priorities for Ethiopia

• Photo gallery

• Awash basin map

• Sponsor - IWMI/CA

• Tekeze basin map

• Partners

• Initiatives

• Newsroom

• Donors

• The Milk Run: Newsletter for ILRI's Smallholder Dairy Network

• The Milk Run: Newsletter for ILRI's Smallholder Dairy Network

• Who we are

• Staff

• Recent publications

• Events

• Theme 1: Targeting opportunities

• Theme 2: Enabling innovation

• Theme 3: Market opportunities

• Theme 4: Biotechnology

• Theme 5: People, livestock and the environment

• Partnerships and communication

• Human resources, finance & administration

• Launch of Joint Laboratory on Livestock and Forage Genetic Resources by the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAA) and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) (18th May 2004)

• ILRI Gives Computer Equipment to Kenyan Schools (10th June 2004)

• Workshop on Breeding Services and the Future of Smallholder Dairy Systems in Kenya: Policy Dialogue Workshop (Tuesday 22nd June 2004)

• Soil Management Collaborative Research Support Program (September 6-10, 2004)

• A seminar By Japanese visiting scientists on a novel drug, ascofuranone, against African trypanosomiasis (14th September 2004)

• Invitation to BECA Cassava Consortium (29th September - 1st October 2004 )

• Objective

• Locations

• Opening time

• Policies and Procedures

• Frequently Asked Questions

• Contacts

• Special Seminar (Friday, 1st October, 2004)

• 5th African association of remote sensing of environment conference (17th - 22nd October 2004)

• Institute Seminar (October 2004-Sptember 2005)

• The 4th International workshop: Novel Approaches to the Control of Helminth Parasites of Livestock (10-12th January 2005)

• Nile Basin livestock–water productivity (A project of the CGIAR–CPWF)

• Seminar

• Partners

• Project proposal

• Project Team’s Discussion & Document

• Presentations

This research area focuses on how investments in livestock research and development can have major impacts on poverty reduction and economic growth in ways that are socially equitable and ecologically sound. It addresses questions of where and by what means livestock can make a major contribution to alleviating poverty. Increased demand for livestock products in developing countries, coupled with land use change, climate change, human population growth, globalisation, and more open trade in some areas is transforming the nature of livestock production and livestock ecosystems, and placing pressures on natural resources and coping strategies of the poor. This project examines those changes and models their driving forces, measures the consequences in terms of poverty, growth opportunities, social equity and the environment, and applies that knowledge to provide both strategic and applied targeting for research and development interventions. This understanding of livestock systems evolution, the role of livestock in sustainable poverty alleviation, and its consequences for both people and the environment, is translated with development partners into improved policy and technology options, investment priorities, livestock development strategies, and capacity strengthening.

Although systematic approaches for generating and disseminating technologies from research through extension have worked well for certain clients and in certain settings, the traditional linear paradigm has often failed to address the needs or have significant impact among the poor. This has been attributed in part to a failure to fully engage poor livestock keepers and other stakeholders in such processes, and to understand their circumstances and realities, thus failing to create an environment that would facilitate the identification, adaptation and dissemination of promising technological and institutional innovations.  For this reason, under ILRI’s new strategy, priority is being given to efforts to gain a clear understanding of the mechanisms that make research more effective and efficient, knowledge more contagious, processes more inclusive and outcomes more in favour of livestock-dependent poor people. Consequently, the Enabling innovation Theme focuses on the development and testing of approaches and partnerships that

1. enable the identification of agreed, prioritised, researchable constraints that affect livestock-dependent poor people under the three ILRI-identified development pathways
2. ensure the implementation of research in a manner which effectively and efficiently addresses those constraints and
3. guarantee the use of media and pathways to facilitate knowledge flows amongst all stakeholders that enable pro-poor outcomes.

This is a Joint Program between ILRI and IFPRI with a research focus that seeks to increase participation of the poor and disadvantaged, both as producers and consumers, in more remunerative and safe livestock input and produce markets. It brings together ILRI's Theme 3 "Market Opportunities", one of the five main pillars of ILRI's research programs and IFPRI's Global Research Program 27 on "Participation in High-Value Markets."

Marketing of livestock and their products has long been an essential pathway for income generation and livelihoods for the poor. Research has consistently shown that even the poorest can gainfully participate in livestock markets. Rapidly growing livestock markets in the developing world provide real opportunities, but also significant threats to participation of the poor due to structural changes associated with globalization, the increasing concentration of population and production around cities, and changing regulatory environments.

The landless poor and smallholder farmers in developing countries typically face very high barriers to accessing the productive assets and the knowledge necessary to participate in a fast-changing sector. Institutional innovations to help the poor overcome these barriers are necessary. Other constraints also need to be addressed, such as policies that subsidise capital-intensive production, inadequate access of smallholders to knowledge and technologies needed to meet sanitary and phyto-sanitary (SPS) standards (both domestic and international), and lack of capacity of the poor to gain market recognition from credible certification of compliance with standards. Beyond this, smallholder farmers will need to enhance their competitiveness relative to large-scale enterprises.

In line with their mandates for sustainable poverty reduction, ILRI and IFPRI have developed a Joint Program (JP) to counter these threats and improve the market access of poor livestock keepers. The JP brings together the institutes' policy and technical capacities from macro to micro level. It combines the efforts of both institutes in the area of research on livestock, dairy and meat markets, market policies, market institutions and market technologies.

The objective of this project is to provide options for improving the impact of rapidly changing domestic and international livestock product markets on developing countries, with special reference to impacts on poor producers through market participation. Specific sub-goals are to increase the efficiency of livestock input and output markets, improve sanitary and phyto-sanitary (SPS) risk assessments and trade policy studies, develop innovations to allow the poor to enter higher value markets, and improve value-addition in developing country supply chains.

Research will identify opportunities for the poor, especially for women and other marginalized peoples, to exploit more effectively market opportunities at all levels and to reduce the associated transaction costs. The research will concentrate on policy issues related to improved marketing of livestock and livestock products in order to take advantage of the increasing demand (the Livestock Revolution) and opportunities that increased globalisation provides, bearing in mind the risks involved. This will include considering factors important at all levels, from local to international, with the latter including responses to WTO regulations and policies.

The program's research is organized along 3 Operating Projects:

Smallholder competitiveness in changing markets - research seeks to enhance competitiveness and improve market access of the poor...more

Changing demand and market institutions - research seeks to provide options for dealing with changing market demands and industrial organization...more

Animal health and food safety for trade - research seeks to provide options for making the impact of changing sanitary and phyto-sanitary (SPS) regulations and practices, and trade policies more generally, more favourable for the poor...more

The JP's research activities are currently located in the Horn of Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Ethiopia), Southern Africa (Botswana, and Namibia), Central America (Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua), the Near East and North Africa Region (Jordan, Tunisia, Sudan, and Syria), South Asia (India and Bangladesh) and Southeast Asia (Laos, the Philippines, Vietnam, and China).

Securing and building the assets of the poor is a cornerstone of poverty alleviation. Disease is a major factor threatening the livestock assets of the poor in low input systems and also limits productivity of, and contribution to income by, these assets. Livestock genetic resources have evolved in diverse environments and carry unique genes that define productive and adaptive capabilities. Use of locally adapted and disease resistant livestock, and development of appropriate interventions, such as diagnostics for disease surveillance, and vaccines and therapeutics for disease prevention and treatment are effective routes to help secure livestock assets of the poor. Approximately one-third of known breeds of livestock worldwide, the majority in developing countries, are threatened with extinction. This project aims to apply biotechnology to deliver greater security of, and access to, livestock germplasm through improved health and survival, improved animal genotypes, and development of molecular tools to support forage and food-feed crop germplasm characterisation and genetic enhancement. Specific applications of biotechnology in the project include better understanding of the diversity and enhanced use of indigenous animal genetic resources and reduction in disease risk and environmental risks through vaccines, better feeds and genetic traits.

Holistic, integrated and community-based approaches that encompass health and nutrition of the poor, the increasing pressure on the natural resources that sustain their livelihoods and options to increase agricultural productivity suitable to their resource endowment, are required to effectively reduce rural poverty. By using such approaches in addressing opportunities at the interface of human well-being, livestock production and the environment, this project provides an entry point to enhance human health and nutrition, ensure the sustainability of agro-ecosystems and improve livestock production. The research takes an integrated natural resource management approach, considering both the positive and negative effects of livestock and their products on the health of livestock keepers, agro-ecosystems and changing land use systems. Central to this approach is the application of sustainable production practices in which the synergies from crop–livestock integration are captured. Forages and food–feed crops are used as targeted inputs in smallholder systems, to enhance productivity, natural resource management efficiency and human well-being.

Outputs

This project will identify strategies based on research of sustainable livestock production practices to enhance livelihoods of the poor through their contribution to better natural resource management and agro-ecosystem health. An important contribution will be to address, in a holistic manner, the links between livestock and human health, water, nutrition, agricultural production and land use change. The strategic use of animal-source foods to improve the nutrition of the poor, particularly young infants and children, will be confirmed and promoted. It will also provide a unique opportunity to bridge the gap between veterinary and medical perspectives regarding zoonotic and food-borne diseases. The productivity and sustainability of crop–livestock systems will be increased through improving the animal feed value of residues from major crops and the targeted use of forages.