News Archive

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...

ILRI News

Senior Kenya government officials visit ILRI’s Kapiti Research Station

Jimmy Smith (centre), Dieter Schillinger (second right) and Sita Ghimire (right) with Kenya government officials who recently visited the Kapiti Research Station (photo credit: ILRI/Paul Karaimu). Three senior Kenya government officials visited the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)...

ILRI News

When did the chicken first cross the road?

There are nine chickens in the world for every human, but the story of how the species emerged from the jungles of Southeast Asia some 8,000 years ago to become the world’s favoured protein source is a complicated one. ‘The success of the chicken has a lot to do with its diversity, and that...

ILRI News

Livestock route mapping for improved health of humans, animals and the environment

Pastoralism is an effective and productive livelihood system that makes the best use of variably distributed natural resources in often dry rangeland areas where it has a particularly strong comparative advantage over other land uses. In order to function well, pastoralists and their livestock need...

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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...

ILRI News

On this International Women’s Day 2020, ILRI commits to strengthening women’s rights in livestock systems and enterprises

This International Women’s Day (IWD) 2020, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) is supporting a campaign run by a new GENDER platform of CGIAR, the world’s largest agricultural research and innovation partnership for a food-secure future. Trader Augusta Thomas sells chickens in...

ILRI News

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

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...

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...

ILRI News

‘Invisible livestock’ – On the central roles of working horses, donkeys and mules on the smallholder farms that feed the world

By Klara Saville (Brooke), Carine Bambara, Anna Marry (both Brooke ) , Brian Perry (University of Edinburgh and University of Oxford). A Honduran maize and bean farmer and his horse (photo credit: CIAT/Neil Palmer). According to World Bank data, 80% of the 770 million people living in extreme...

ILRI News

How a deadly outbreak unveiled the key to safer food

Photo credit: image credit: Discott/Wikimedia Commons A recent article by Nancy Averett in Scientific African Magazine discusses how incidents of food poisoning in African cities may public awareness of food safety and kindle a citizens’ movement for safer foods. It focuses in part on the work of...

CGIAR Research Program on Livestock

New livestock project in Vietnam can help improve livelihoods of ethnic minorities

Smoked beef adds greater value to to meat products. Smoking meat is an activity that occurs mostly in the city of Son La, Vietnam. Photo: Hung Nguyen/ILRI The CGIAR Research Program on Livestock (Livestock CRP) recently launched a new project in Son La Province, in the northwest highland region of...

ILRI clippings

The meat wars: A backlash is occurring on the backlash to meat dietary recommendations published late last year

Roy Lichenstein, Standing Rib (via Wikiart). On 19 Nov 2019, guidelines were published in the Annals of Internal Medicine that caused a backlash, and now a backlash on the backlash is occurring. The abstract to the original 2019 Annals article, titled Unprocessed red meat and processed meat...