News Archive

Sustainable livestock systems

Climate-smart livestock systems program kicks off in Kenya’s pastoral rangelands

Like many other rangelands in East Africa, the South Rift rangelands in Kenya’s Kajiado County are vulnerable to the effects of climate change. In the Ol Kirmatian and Shompole group ranches in Kajiado, pastoralism is the predominant means of livestock production and over the years the pastoralists...

AVCD program blog

Promoting better agricultural practices of drought-tolerant crops in farming communities

Makueni Ventures chairman, John Ndiso in the farm in Emali, Makueni County. Photo Credit AVCD/Muthoni Njiru Makueni Agribusiness Ventures is a 10-member farmer group that participated in an AVCD funded good agricultural practices (GAPs) and modern farming training lead by ICRISAT. The group has a...

AVCD program blog

The private sector can deliver veterinary vaccines in Kenya

On 1 February 2020 the director of veterinary services (DVS), Obadiah Njagi, issued a circular clarifying the roles and responsibilities of the private sector in the delivery of veterinary medicines and vaccines across Kenya in accordance with the existing laws and regulations. For a long time, the...

AgHealth blog

New study explores the benefits of a One Health approach to investigating antimicrobial resistance in Vietnam

The One Health concept promotes the enhancement of human, animal and ecosystem health through multi-sectoral governance support and policies to combat health security threats. In Vietnam, antimicrobial resistance in animal and human health settings poses a significant threat, but one that could be...

Mazingira blog

ILRI 'eWeigh' mobile phone app to help farmers accurately estimate live weight of their cattle

ILRI news One of the most important and revealing attributes of livestock is their live weight. This single measurement can help farmers effectively manage their stock and is critical for making informed decisions on aspects of animal production such as feed rations, market value, administration of...

AgHealth blog

Call for abstracts: ecohealth 2020

Ecohealth approaches are designed to promote the health of people, animals and ecosystems with attention to social and ecological justice, sustainability and the relationships required to achieve a healthy future. Ecohealth approaches rely on systems thinking and the complementary efforts of...

Mazingira blog

Where does the methane in the atmosphere come from?

In February 2020 a team from ILRI’s Mazingira Centre, Royal Holloway, University of London and Cambridge University went on a trip through Southern Kenya to sample air. Sampling air may sound arbitrary yet the bigger aim of this field campaign was to derive samples from livestock including cattle,...

AVCD program blog

When Participatory Approaches Mess up Your Plans

I never imagined that this man who had brought his herd into this other community’s pastures and flouted the community’s grazing rules, and whose actions had disrupted our training workshop would become a champion of our approach. The Interrupted Workshop I had come to Turkana County in...

CGIAR Research Program on Livestock

Making the case for new data on rangelands

A Fulani boy in Niger herds his family’s animals Photo S. Mann/ILRI “What if much of the basic information being used to describe approximately half of the world’s land surface dated from as far back as the 1960s? (And, is ‘approximately half’ even still a correct estimation?)” This is the question...

Sustainable livestock systems

A tool for all seasons: A ‘lean’ household survey system for ‘minimal effort, maximum information’ comes of age

Mark van Wijk, a senior scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), and his colleagues are excited to announce the first public release of a dataset generated by surveys of more than 13,000 households in 21 countries using a novel survey tool – the Rural Household Multi-...

Beca-ILRI Hub

Strengthening the capacity of African women scientists

Over the years, the ABCF program has supported several researchers who have now grown into positions of influence within their institutions. This week we feature two scientists from the national research organizations and are doing great things for agricultural development. Nina Wambiji, Kenya As...

  • Valerian Aloo
Mazingira blog

Changing landscapes call for new pathways in livestock development in Ethiopia’s Afar region

Sustainable livestock systems Livestock production is the main source of livelihood in the pastoral lands of Afar in northeastern Ethiopia. But the traditional livestock-keeping way of life there has been severely affected by climate change in recent years. Rainfall has become unpredictable, and...