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ILRI News

Four ILRI fellows attend World Food Prize symposium (virtually)

By Timothy Offei-Addo Four fellows from the International Livestock Research Institute’s (ILRI) CapDev Grand Challenge attended this year’s virtual World Food Prize symposium from 12–16 Oct. The symposium addresses cutting-edge issues in food security and nutrition and is widely considered one of...

ILRI News
ILRI News

Sounding the alarm: The impact of COVID-19 on global food security and nutrition

Jimmy Smith , the director general of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), spoke on 14 Oct, 2020 about how to prepare for and prevent future pandemics at a Committee on World Food Security (CFS) high-level event . The event, held virtually over three days and in lieu of the...

ILRI News
ILRI News

Remembering Michael Blümmel

It is with great sadness that we report the death of Michael Blümmel , a principal scientist and deputy program leader in the feed and forage development program at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). Michael passed away on Monday, 12 Oct 2020, after a short illness in his...

ILRI News
ILRI News

International Livestock Research Institute becomes Global Landscapes Forum charter member

(BONN, 12 October 2020) – Over half a billion people in developing countries depend to some extent on farm animals for their livelihoods. Animal-sourced food also plays an important role in nutrition, through providing readily-available proteins and micronutrients. But animal agriculture is also...

ILRI News

When numbers lie

Land surface temperature data from ILRI’s Kapiti Research Station’s validation towers are significantly warmer than expected, prompting concern . Vast disparities in the number of instruments used to validate satellite climate sensors data have woefully underestimated the true peak temperatures of...

ILRI News

A 1,000-year-old ‘Evolutionary Jolt’ helped African cattle adapt to the continent’s multiple challenges

A new study in Nature Genetics retraced 1,000 years of African pastoralist cattle breeding, identifying how cattle acquired the traits that enabled them to spread throughout the continent NAIROBI, Kenya (30 Sep 2020)— Scientists sifting through the DNA of indigenous African cattle breeds announced...

ILRI News

‘To turn the unknown into the known’: Inside the global effort to bring the fight to viruses

Dennis Carroll , chair of the Global Virome Project Leadership Board, an ambitious global effort to develop a comprehensive database of viruses and detect and track down the planet’s unknown and emerging viral threats, spoke with Jimmy Smith , the International Livestock Research Institute’s (ILRI...

ILRI News

No laughing matter: Livestock enclosures in Africa are an underestimated source of the greenhouse gas N2O

An international team of scientists have now identified previously unknown sources of nitrous oxide (N 2 O) in sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is home to about a quarter of the world’s cattle, goats and sheep—a share that is expected to grow considerably in coming decades. Most of these...

ILRI News

The world needs to learn how to live with COVID-19, says UK public health expert David Heymann

A 3-D model of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, developed by ILRI digital communications specialist Annabel Slater. The world will need to learn to live with COVID-19 with or without a vaccine for the disease because it is likely to become endemic, says David Heymann , professor of infectious disease...

ILRI News

Unite human, animal and environmental health to prevent the next pandemic, says ILRI/UN report

● COVID-19 is just one example of the rising trend of diseases—from Ebola to MERS to West Nile and Rift Valley fevers—caused by viruses that have jumped from animal hosts into the human population. ● A new assessment offers 10 recommendations and identifies One Health as the optimal way to prevent...

ILRI News

‘A vaccine is coming—the question is how soon’

Nobel Prize winner Peter Doherty addressed the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) at its latest Town Hall meeting Nobel Prize winner in physiology or medicine and ILRI patron Peter Doherty discussed vaccines, herd immunity, and policy responses to COVID-19 with Director General Jimmy...

ILRI News

The power of ideas: New ways of thinking about gender can improve development outcomes

What does it mean to take gender seriously in development—and specifically in agriculture and livestock development? How can the international community promote economic development in ways that are both culturally sensitive and substantively equitable? What kinds of power are available to women in...