Artworks on this page: Various Jugs, by Katie Grobler.

A new report from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) reviews the effectiveness of training and certification schemes designed to give small-scale ‘informal’ sellers of ‘raw’ and/or boiled or informally pasteurized milk and (in India) milk sweets greater market access in East Africa and South Asia.

The report reviews such schemes in Kenya and Tanzania and in the state of Assam, in northwestern India. In all three countries, the informal sector dominates dairy marketing and trade and informal milk production and trade contribute significantly to the employment, livelihoods and nutrition of many millions of poor people.

From the executive summary
‘This paper reviews the status and policy contexts of informal milk markets in Kenya, Tanzania and Assam (India) to better understand the opportunities for a policy innovation based on training and certification to overcome market access barriers for sellers of informal milk by improving the health and safety practices of informal milk traders, thereby addressing policymakers’ concerns. It is based on an extensive review of available literature and a small number of expert interviews and contributions.

‘Informal economic activities have been defined as those that operate outside the formal reach of the law or where the law is not applied or enforced, or where the law discourages compliance because it is inappropriate, burdensome or imposes excessive costs (White and Aylward 2016). However, as in other types of informal markets, informality in milk markets is not a black-and-white phenomenon. Small-scale milk businesses operate at different points along a spectrum of informality—with those selling raw milk without any of the required licences at the more informal end of the spectrum and those selling only packed and industrially pasteurized/ultra-heat treated milk with all necessary licences at the formal end. Other measures of formality/informality include the type of labour, relations with suppliers or access to finance and credit (White and Aylward 2016).

‘Milk production in the three countries is predominantly informal and small-scale. Dominant farming systems in Kenya, Tanzania and Assam are smallholder-led sedentary farms and pastoralists.

Large volumes of milk are produced in all three countries and significant volumes are consumed on farm. The informal sector usually pays more to producers than the formal sector and pays in cash on collection—a key attraction.

‘Industrial milk processing in all three countries is largely under-developed. In Kenya, the market is highly consolidated , with Brookside Dairy Limited and New Kenya Cooperative Creameries Limited processing 75% of all milk, and there is some market concentration in Tanzania. Obtaining sufficient volumes of milk is a key constraint to growth of the industrialized processing sector in all three countries. Smaller and micro-scale processors are emerging in Assam and Kenya in response to the government push for pasteurization.

The informal sector dominates dairy marketing and trade. Mobile vendors, shops/kiosks and milk bars dominate retailing in Kenya and Tanzania, and mobile/street vendors in Assam.

The geography and size of all three countries and poor infrastructure make marketing challenging. A lack of cold chain facilities means the milk must pass through a short chain to reach the consumer to maintain its quality.

Low-income consumers dominate consumption of informal milk (chiefly raw and/or boiled, or informally pasteurized, or in the case of India, solid milk-based products such as sweets, ghee and paneer).

‘Rates of consumption among low-income consumers are still lower than the recommended rates of per capita consumption. Price, quantities available to purchase, perceptions of freshness and fat content, convenience and accessibility drive the preference for raw milk.

Health hazards are associated with milk consumption. But, due to prevalent boiling practices in all three countries (with the exception of African pastoralist communities), many of these hazards do not translate to actual risks.

Informal milk production and trade contribute significantly to employment and livelihoods of poor people, as well as nutrition. In terms of price per unit of protein, milk typically represents better value than other domestic animal products.

‘However, legitimate health and safety concerns exist for milk since it is highly perishable and can contain disease-causing parasites, bacteria, antibiotic residues and aflatoxins. Some of these cannot be eliminated by any form of heat treatment (including pasteurization) and are determined at the production node of the chain (for example, antibiotic residues and aflatoxins).

Informality poses significant challenges to policymaking. Our review has shown that current policy approaches are poorly equipped to address the persistent reality of informal dairy markets.

Informal trade of milk and dairy products in Kenya, Tanzania and Assam shows no signs of abating, and yet policy offers either unrealistic—and unachievable—standards to force a move towards formalization in the form of pasteurization, or neglect.

Neither of these options offers a path to dealing constructively with a sector that offers livelihoods and nutrition for millions, but that also suffers from public health issues.

Inappropriate policies may in fact increase the cost of milk to the disadvantage of consumers and may, paradoxically, decrease milk safety.

Training and certification schemes offer a glimpse of a possible policy alternative that reconciles the needs of governments for better oversight of the informal sector, of vendors for freedom of harassment and better livelihoods, and of consumers for affordability, taste and, if well implemented and grounded on positive incentives, safety.

‘These schemes were implemented in all three countries with varying degrees of success—in terms of impact, scale and sustainability. In Kenya and Tanzania, the initial promise shown by the schemes has not translated into long-term sustainability or scaling. In Assam, as of 2015, the scheme was still ongoing but some challenges in recruiting and retaining participants had been reported. Evidence on the impact of the scheme in the respective countries shows some improvements for businesses in terms of skills and quality control, but the evidence is mixed with regard to health and safety practices and income for vendors.

Our review suggests that training and certification schemes can provide win-win situations when they align the interests of different stakeholders, but that co-funding is often needed.

‘A number of challenges and constraints explain the inability of the schemes to be scaled and sustained, including unstable policy environments (changing attitude of government to informal players); absence of policy or wider social drivers; and a weak relationship between knowledge and practice—while knowledge and capacities were improved, these did not always or necessarily translate into changes in practice.’

Read the whole report: Informal milk markets in Kenya, Tanzania and Assam (India)—An overview of their status, policy context and opportunities for policy innovation to improve health and safety, by Emma Blackmore (IIED), Alejandro Guarín (IIED), Silvia Alonso (ILRI), Delia Grace (ILRI and Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich) and Bill Vorley (IIED), ILRI Project Report, Oct 2020.

Acknowledgements
ILRI scientists Amos Omore, Emmanuel Muunda, Ram Deka and Steve Staal reviewed this paper and ILRI communications specialist Tezira Lore edited it. The MoreMilk: Making the most of milk project is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the CGIAR Research
Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health, and UK Aid from the United Kingdom government.

ILRI’s Kapiti Research Station (photo credit: ILRI/Jake Meyers).

‘Nairobi National Park wildlife ecosystem has more than doubled its land size to 78,000 acres after two institutions agreed to integrate their land with the wildlife conservancy.

On Thursday, 24 Sep 2020,
the Kapiti Research Station of Kenya’s
International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)
and the neighbouring Swara Plains Conservancy
declared their 32,000 and 15,000 acres,
respectively, for wildlife conservation.

Zebra are among the many wildlife species that roam
ILRI’s Kapiti Research Station (photo credit: ILRI/Jake Meyers).

‘Tourism and Wildlife Cabinet Secretary Najib Balala handed over registration certificates to the two conservancies at a ceremony held at the Swara Plains Wildlife Conservancy.

‘”I wish to take this opportunity to sincerely thank the two conservancies on behalf of the government and the people of Kenya for this wonderful gift that will ensure our unique biodiversity thrives for posterity.

This will be an essential wildlife corridor,
for the animal population in Nairobi National Park,”
said Balala.

Giraffe at ILRI’s Kapiti Research Station
(photo credit: ILRI/Jake Meyers).

‘The CS added that Nairobi National Park is not big enough to meet the ecological requirements of its wildlife populations throughout the year.

‘”On the Northern side, we are looking into acquiring 1,500 acres of land to extend the Nairobi National Park to Ngong Forest.’

We hope that all this will enable Nairobi National Park
to be listed and declared a world heritage site,” Balala said. . . .

Read the whole article by Hilary Kimuyu: Nairobi National Park’s Land Size Doubles, Nairobi News, 26 Sep 2020.

Other news clippings about this:
Government expands Nairobi National Park by 49,000 acres to create wildlife migration corridor, by Linda Shiundu, Tuko, 26 Sep 2020.

Nairobi national park reserve increased to 78,000 acres, by John Ng’ang’a, KBC, 25 Sep 2020.

ILRI’s Kapiti Research Station commits to preserving biodiversity and conserving wildlife through its wildlife corridor, by ILRI, 30 Sep 2020.

Learn more about ILRI’s Kapiti Research Station in this brochure: Kapiti Plains Ranch: Farmhouse and research centre.

Fun with Lines and Curves by Elsie C. Ellison, 1972 (binding illustration).

The IDEAL project, first attempt to study

the complete pathogen landscape of any species,

has generated a unique dataset and biorepository

for researchers of infectious diseases

of cattle in East Africa.

‘The Infectious Diseases of East African Livestock (IDEAL) project was a longitudinal cohort study of calf health which was conducted in Western Kenya between 2007–2010. A total of 548 East African shorthorn zebu calves were recruited at birth and followed at least every 5 weeks during the first year of life. Comprehensive clinical and epidemiological data, blood and tissue samples were collected at every visit. These samples were screened for over 100 different pathogens or infectious exposures, using a range of diagnostic methods.

‘This manuscript describes this comprehensive dataset and bio-repository, and how to access it through a single online site. This provides extensive filtering and searching capabilities. These data are useful to illustrate outcomes of multiple infections on health, investigate patterns of morbidity and mortality due to parasite infections, and to study genotypic determinants of immunity and disease. . . .

‘In summary, this evolving dataset linked to its biorepository represents the first attempt to study the complete pathogen landscape of any species and a unique resource for the research community interested in infectious diseases of cattle in East Africa. The longitudinal collection of data allows the outcomes of multiple infections to be related to their effect on their host and their interaction with host genotype. We hope that this database will provide the opportunity for others to study the dynamics of infectious diseases, either as stand-alone work or used in synergy with other projects. The online format integrated with the biobank provides an opportunity to apply any new tools as they become available allowing new questions to be addressed.’

Read the whole IDEAL paper
IDEAL, the Infectious Diseases of East African Livestock project open access database and biobank, by Rebecca Callaby, Cezar Pendarovski, Amy Jennings, Samuel Thumbi Mwangi, Ilana Van Wyk, Mary Mbole-Kariuki, Henry Kiara (ILRI), Philip Toye (ILRI), Steve Kemp (ILRI), Olivier Hanotte (ILRI), Jacobus Coetzer, Ian Handel, Mark Woolhouse and Barend Mark de Clare Bronsvoort, 9 Jul 2020, Scientific Data 7: 224.

Find IDEAL samples meta-data
All the IDEAL samples meta-data can be found on the IDEAL project website: http://data.ctlgh.org/ideal/

Request IDEAL samples
The Azizi Biorepository maintains the samples on behalf of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). Any use of the institute samples is regulated by ILRI which evaluates any requests for samples. In addition to the institute’s samples, the use of the IDEAL samples is regulated by the IDEAL project’s management committee.

Read more about ILRI’s Azizi Biorepository
ILRI News blog: ILRI’s ‘Azizi’ facility is storing samples of livestock and wildlife biodiversity for future research, 26 Jun 2020.

Read more about the IDEAL project
Reflections on IDEAL: What we have learnt from a unique calf cohort study, by Rebecca Callaby et al., Preventive Veterinary Medicine 181:105062.

Written by Eric Fèvre, University of Liverpool and International Livestock Research Institute, and Elizabeth Cook, International Livestock Research Institute

In Kenya, camels are a very popular animal to keep as livestock. There’s value in their meat and milk products and as a result, there are now over three million camels in the country.

But there is a danger that the people who come into contact with camels, and their products, face getting the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). MERS is a disease in people caused by a coronavirus (MERS-CoV) which was first identified in Saudia Arabia in 2012.

The disease spread to several Middle Eastern, North African and European countries. MERS has since been reported in 27 countries, with almost 2500 cases and almost 900 deaths. 80% of the recorded human cases have been in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Handling camels is considered a high risk activity: in Saudi Arabia up to 67% of camel handlers have been exposed.

MERS-CoV likely emerged from bats and found a comfortable home in dromedary camels. Camels are now thought to be the main reservoir of MERS-CoV infection to humans.

The coronavirus family can cause disease in people ranging from simple colds to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. According to the WHO, MERS may present with fever, cough, shortness of breath and pneumonia. Severe cases could lead to respiratory failure – requiring mechanical ventilation – and organ failure. Among those diagnosed, mortality rates are as high as 35%.

Given work we, and others, had done on MERS in camel populations in East Africa, we wanted to know how big of a risk MERS is to people in East Africa.

We did this by carrying out a study in Kenya in which we looked for the presence of antibodies in high-risk groups – those who handle and slaughter camels.

Blood samples

We took blood samples from 58 slaughterhouse workers and 35 camel herders and, of this small sample, four out of the 58 showed that they had the MERS-CoV antibodies.

Our study also found that none of the workers tested demonstrated signs of disease at the time of sampling, nor had they been sick in the recent past. This means that exposure to the virus happened at some point in the past, and that these individuals were not actively infected with the virus.

This is the first time that camel handlers in East Africa have been shown to have been exposed to MERS.

Being positive for antibody to the virus means that these individuals had been exposed to the virus, that their bodies had mounted an immune response, and that the virus had eventually cleared from their system, probably after, at worst, mild cold-like symptoms.

There is no current evidence of MERS presenting as an acute human health or public health problem in East Africa. This means that the virus circulating in the region may not cause a particularly aggressive disease, or perhaps the symptoms are mistaken by health care providers for other, more common illness.

Intense contact

Those that tested positive in our new study were either the slaughterman (the person who cuts the throat of the camel) or had drunk raw camel blood. This suggests that intense contact with the virus was needed for transmission.

Our earlier work, and that of others in our institute, has shown that almost half of Kenya’s 3 million plus camels have been exposed to MERS-CoV.

Read more:
Studying African camels is key to learning more about the MERS virus

In camels worldwide the disease causes a mild presentation and will usually not be noticed by their owners or by animal health providers, especially at it resolves within about a week.

Interestingly, the virus appears to have been circulating extensively in the region since well before it was identified as a zoonotic disease problem in the Middle East.

Our results suggest that the MERS virus in East Africa may be subtly different to that in the Middle East, and unlikely to cause large outbreaks. This is supported by work done by some of our colleagues on the genetic variation in the virus across its range.

Our new findings are important because they show that even if this is the case, the virus can and will infect humans from time to time, especially if they have intensive contact with the reservoir, camels.

Alice Kiyonga, Laboratory technician (ILRI), took a leading role in carrying out this research and contributed to this article; Ekta Patel at ILRI contributed to early drafts of this article.

Eric Fèvre, Professor of Veterinary Infectious Diseases, University of Liverpool, and International Livestock Research Institute, Kenya, and Elizabeth Cook, Veterinary epidemiologist, International Livestock Research Institute

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Goats at the Hargeisa Livestock Market selected for export (photo credit: ILRI/Peter Ballantyne).

Agricultural development in Somalia—an important commercial centre in antiquity that in 1991 became stateless and suffered more than two decades of conflict and, more recently, devastating drought—is BACK.

With livestock and cropping the backbone of the country, leaders from 11 of the 15 CGIAR centres discussed with Somali officials last month at ICRAF ways that CGIAR agricultural research could help accelerate and enhance Somalia’s development.

Cattle in quarantine at the Port of Berbera awaiting export to the Middle East (photo credit: ILRI/Peter Ballantyne). 

The topics covered were as diverse as CGIAR and included everything from banana, rice, camel milk and meat production and value chains; to new sorghum varieties that feed both people (grain) and livestock (through the stalks and leaves of the sorghum plants); to climate-smart cassava, cowpea, millet, sesame, sorghum, Irish potatoes and orange-fleshed sweetpotatoes; to farmer-led seed production initiatives; to index-based insurance schemes protecting farmers against drought-related livestock and crop losses; to agroforestry (‘Regreening Africa’) and other land restoration initiatives.

Fat-tailed sheep at the Hargeisa Livestock Market selected for export (photo credit: ILRI/Pater Ballantyne).

The following, among the inputs made by Iain Wright, deputy director general of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), are examples of the many CGIAR research areas with high relevance to Somalia.

Crop residues form the basis of diet for many livestock. The quality of crop stover is critical for livestock feed. ILRI is working to improve the digestibility and quantity of crop stover for farm animals.

We’re also supporting ICRISAT in breeding ‘dual-purpose’ sorghum plants that have enriched grains for human consumption and leaves and stalks for animal consumption.

ILRI also investigates fodder plants that feed livestock. ILRI’s gene bank in Addis Ababa conserves and distributes seeds of 19,000 forage species.

Both ILRI and the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) are piloting successful livestock and crop ‘index-based’ insurance and the synergies between them make up a potentially high-impact innovation for Somalia.

Goats being transported to Hargeisa Livestock Market by car (photo by ILRI/Nadhem Mtimet), ILRI scientist Nadhem Mtimet with camels for sale at the market (photo by ILRI/Peter Ballantyne) and a fodder saleswoman at the market (photo by ILRI/Peter Ballantyne).

The meeting was attended by representatives of the Somalia Government and its donors, including:

• Mohamed Muse Adan, director of crop production and extension in Somalia’s ministry of agriculture
• Mohamed Shirdon, a seed-system expert in Somalia’s ministry of agriculture
• Mohamed Abdinoor, chief of party of the USAID-supported GEEL program (Growth, Enterprise, Employment and Livelihoods) in Somalia
• USAID consultant Said Ali

Hooked up by video link were:

• Somalia’s Federal Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation Honourable Said Hussein Lid
• Ministry staff

Representatives of four donor agencies attended:

• European Union (EU)
• Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
• Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)
• United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

Leaders of 9 CGIAR centres attended:

• Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)
• International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)
• International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT)
• International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA)
• International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)
• International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)
• International Potato Center (CIP)
• International Rice Research Institute (IRRI)
• World Agroforestry (ICRAF)

And leaders of 2 other CGIAR centres participated remotely:

• International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA)
• International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

Read the full ICRAF report by Cathy Watson about this meeting: As agriculture resurges in Somalia, CGIAR centres, government, FAO and donors plan to help it thrive, 24 Sep 2019.

Village-based dairy advisor Lillian Ochieng cleaning her cow’s udder in preparation for milking in Siaya County (Photo credit: FIPS/Raymond Jumah)

A recent article in Parents Africa magazine reaches some unduly alarming conclusions about the milk sold in Nairobi—and attributes them to research published by scientists here at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). Scientific journals can be difficult to interpret. That’s why we wish the author had contacted us before publishing her article, and why we continue to extend an invitation to her and to other journalists to check with us before publishing articles about our work.

Based on a misreading of our research, the article claims that Nairobi milk may contain carcinogenic levels of aflatoxin. In fact, there is no agreement on the acceptable level of aflatoxin in milk. For example, although nearly half the samples in our study were outside the EU limits, nearly all were within the USA limits. Aflatoxins are at the levels we have found in Kenyan milk are not especially concerning in terms of their known impact on human health. Risk assessments show that, in Kenya, the risk of aflatoxin in milk to human health is negligible.

In fact, many commonly eaten foods contain small amounts of carcinogens: coffee, processed meat, nyama choma, beer. However, the risk is small and most people are happy to eat these foods. It is unlikely they will personally suffer as a result. There is no such thing as zero risk or a completely safe food.

There are, however, several things that parents can do to protect their children from food-borne diseases. While aflatoxins are not especially concerning, all raw animal products have some risk of containing things that can harm health, such as campylobacter bacteria, which can cause sometimes severe gastrointestinal disease. We recommend that parents boil their milk before consuming it, as well as cook their meat properly and reduce contact between raw meat and other foods.

Kenya’s dairy and poultry sectors are great success stories; they provide livelihoods to hundreds of thousands of farmers and traders and have contributed enormously to the health and well-being of children country-wide. Milk and meat help children grow tall and have good brain development. Avoiding them would have many bad health effects.

We continue to do our part to monitor food safety here in Kenya and are actively working on research projects to make the food safer together with other partners.

For more information about ILRI’s work on the dairy sector in Kenya, and specifically on aflatoxin in milk, see ‘Occurrence of aflatoxin M1 in raw milk traded in peri-urban Nairobi, and the effect of boiling and fermentation,’ by Kuboka, M.M., et al; Aflatoxin M1 levels in different marketed milk products in Nairobi, Kenya, by Johanna Frida Lindahl et al; and Measuring and mitigating the risk of mycotoxins in maize and dairy products for poor consumers in Kenya, by Johanna Frida Lindahl.

Cattle grazing at ILRI’s Kapiti Ranch Research Station, outside Nairobi, in Kenya (photo credit: ILRI/Paul Karaimu).

Kenya’s livestock sector is primed to grow exponentially over the next three decades and anchor the country’s food sufficiency amid a rapid rise in the human population, a new survey showed.

A legume farming demonstration plot by the N2Africa project in Pawe, Benshangul Gumuz, Ethiopia (photo credit: ILRI/Apollo Habtamu).

A five-year project that promoted nitrogen fixation through the use of rhizobia bacteria in grain legumes in Ethiopia has helped participating smallholder farmers increase their legume production by 20% and could help the country save over USD28 million annually in fertilizer costs.

The N2africa project, a large-scale agricultural research project that worked in 11 African countries, put nitrogen fixation to work for smallholders by using strains of root nodule bacteria known as rhizobia in grain legumes. The grain legumes are particularly useful in small-scale low-input systems of agriculture because they take inert nitrogen from the air and, through symbiosis with the bacteria, transform it into proteins in a process that leaves no carbon footprint in the atmosphere. The legumes also provide an important source of protein in the human diet.

Working in 31 woredas (administrative divisions) in the Amhara; Oromia; Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’; and Benishangul Gumuz regions of Ethiopia since 2014; the project has helped over 70,000 smallholder farmers not only take up farming of legumes such as common bean, faba bean, chickpea and soybean but also improve the fertility of their farms. Use of a technology to inoculate the legume plants with rhizobia has increased legume productivity, changed farmers’ attitudes towards legume cultivation and consumption, and brought about other agricultural benefits.

‘The average yield of legumes by N2Africa farmers increased by at least 20% compared to the baseline and non-participating farmers,’ says the N2Africa project coordinator, Endalkachew Wolde-Meskel. ‘This is equivalent to an increase in income of 13.5%, which represents a return on investment of USD3.5 for each dollar invested.’

Most of the project’s work was carried out through the national agricultural research system using public-private partners. The legume value chain involves more than 35 partners, including public institutions (national agricultural research institutions and the Bureau of Agriculture), private-sector partners (Gutes Agro, Alema Kudijts Feed Plc and an inoculant manufacturer), farmers’ cooperatives (Tsehay Union, Bore Baco, Sidama Elto and Mama Union) and non-governmental organizations (Menschen für Menschen and Catholic Relief Services).

‘While our collaborations with all the partners was important, the contributions of the national agricultural research institutions—Hawassa University, the Amhara Agricultural Research Institute, the Oromia Agricultural Research Institute and the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research—to the project have been central to our success,’ Endalkachew says.

The project ended in June 2019, but many of these farmers will continue to enjoy significant increases in maize yields, for example, due to the residual soil fertility effects of nitrogen fixation after planting inoculated legumes such as soybean in their farms.

The N2Africa Ethiopia project was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation through Wageningen University. It was implemented by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).

Watch a four-minute video on the work of the N2Africa project in Ethiopia.

Watch a related news report on Ethiopia’s ETV television for more information (starts at 15:00 to 17:41 mins).

See related outputs from the project.

Visit the N2Africa wikispace http://n2africa-ethiopia.ilriwikis.org/Home and website www.n2africa.org

Portait of young Boran cattle in Ethiopia. Photo: C. Hanotte (ILRI)

In Sub-Saharan Africa, livestock is crucial for the livelihoods of more than 80 percent of poor households. In addition, as a result of a growing population, increasing income and urbanisation, demand for livestock products is rising steadily across the region.

This might seem like a good combination—those with rising purchasing power can buy more livestock products, thereby helping to increase the incomes of poor livestock keepers. Throw the climate crisis into the mix, however, and the situation turns sour. Climate change has a negative impact on livestock production. Rising temperatures and lower annual rainfall reduce livestock productivity and inhibit the growth of fodder crops. Soil degradation and water scarcity led to declines in food for animals. Land-use conflicts are increasing, threatening food security and gradually eroding livestock farmers’ livelihoods.

n the past few months, the Program for climate-smart livestock systems (PCSL) was launched in Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) to support interventions to increase the contribution of livestock production to the three key pillars of CSA: increased productivity, mitigation of GHG emissions and adaptation to climate change.

Read the full story on the CCAFS web site

More:

• CCAFS project page: Program for climate-smart livestock systems
• Working paper: Climate and livestock policy coherence analysis in Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda

The team later visited the College of Agriculture of Arba Minch University, in the same region, where they spoke at a seminar organized by Aynalem and the dean of the college, Yishak Kechero. The seminar was attended by professors and students of the college and agriculture experts.

Visit by ILRI board members to Arba Minch University College of Agriculture will cement relations between the two institutions.

Yishak introduced the seminar, which was followed by a presentation by Aynalem on why the genetic improvement of small ruminants in Ethiopia has failed and the need for a rethink in strategy. He stressed that the community goat breeding program is technically feasible and economically rewarding but there is a need to strengthen institutional arrangements by establishing breeders’ cooperatives. Aynalem said the capacity of the different actors involved should be strengthened, adding that the program needs long-term support and committed technical staff to make it sustainable.

ILRI board members Jing Zhu (bottom left) and Chanda Nimbkar (speaking bottom right) visited a community-based goat breeding program in Baide village of Konso and the College of Agriculture of Arba Minch University in southern Ethiopia on 11 May 2019 (photo credit: ILRI/Olivier Hanotte).

Hanotte, a joint appointee of ILRI and the University of Nottingham, spoke about the genomic architecture of African cattle. Genetic diversity is the basis for setting up breeding programs and genomic tools allow faster genetic gain in breeding programs. This was followed by a presentation on livestock breed purity: whose goal? by Chanda Nimbkar, director of the Animal Husbandry Division of the Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute, in Maharashtra, India. Finally, Jing Zhu, Cheung Kong Scholars chair and professor at the College of Economics and Management, Nanjing Agricultural University, China, spoke about the broader contributions of agriculture to the Chinese economy in a presentation on agricultural policy and food security in China. After the presentations, there was an interactive question-and-answer session and discussion with the audience.

Later, opportunities for further collaboration with the university in joint research, student supervision and scholarships in China were discussed.

Story by Chanda Nimbkar, ILRI board member

Edited by Meron Mulatu, ILRI communications and publishing officer