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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

From framework to implementation: ILRI Impact at Scale program publishes first scaling readiness analysis on livestock innovations

The Impact at Scale (I@S) program of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) has published the ‘ Scaling Readiness report and scaling plan for training and certification approach for small-scale pig producers in Uganda. ’ This is the first of a series of Scaling Readiness reports and...

ILRI News
ILRI News

Updated CGIAR feed database provides best-cost livestock feed rations for sub-Saharan Africa

Fifty three new accessions of Napier grass received at Forage Genebank, ILRI, Addis Ababa from EMBRAPA, Br azil (photo credit: ILRI) An updated CGIAR livestock feeds database for sub-Saharan Africa is now available. Containing the nutritive values of over 44,000 forage and fodder samples, the...

ILRI News
ILRI News

A new study gives insights on Napier (elephant) grass, a fast-growing tropical grass

Martha Anyango of Homabay County in her plot of improved napier grass (Ouma variety) planted in Tumbukiza holes (photo credit: AVCD/ FIPS R. Jumah) Napier grass, which is also known as elephant grass, is one of the most important fodder crops grown across the global tropics. This grass is the main...

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

COVID-19 and the livestock sector: A wake-up call to optimize sustainable livestock production

Written by Cynthia Mugo How do we optimize livestock production systems to meet a growing global demand for food and nutritional security in economic, social and environmentally sustainable ways? This question was asked of participants who attended a virtual meeting for anglophone Africa livestock...

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

USAID-funded Regional Feed the Future Animal Health Innovation Lab to be based in Nairobi, Kenya

Livestock moving back to the villages during a storm, Oromia, Ethiopia (photo credit: ILRI/ Camille Hanotte) . A five-year, USD6 million grant from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) , with an opportunity to grow to $16 million, will develop a regional Feed the Future...

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Getting beyond ’empty signifiers’—Food policy expert Corinna Hawkes asks: What are food systems for?

All children’s artworks on this page are from Artsonia Art Gallery. In the lead up to the United Nations Food Systems Summit 2021 , Corinna Hawkes , director of the Centre for Food Policy at City, University of London, UK, asks all of us concerned with ‘food systems’ of one kind or another to think...