She sat down with Saba Ermyas, communication officer at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), one of the implementing partners of  the HEAL Project, to talk about her work, her new role and her aspirations for the project.

Tell us a little about your background

I was born and raised in Dire Dawa city. I studied veterinary medicine at Mekele University and I am currently pursuing a Master of Advanced Studies in international health degree at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, University of Basel, Switzerland. I started my career in Dire Dawa working as a veterinarian in the regional livestock laboratory and later at an abattoir. In 2015, I joined the Comitato Collaborazione Medica (CCM) office in Filtu Zone as a veterinarian operation researcher. I am very proud to have been part of the team that conducted the first One Health operational research in Ethiopia,  an assessment of pastoralists’ needs, perceptions and behaviours towards human and animal health, in relation to local social-ecological context. The resulting report has inspired and become a baseline for One Health work in the country including the HEAL project. Similar studies have also since been replicated in Kenya and Somalia.

In 2016, I joined the Vétérinaires Sans Frontières (VSF) Suisse in Dire Dawa in response to the El Nino drought and 2017 in Gode Somali region in a program supporting the global eradication of peste des petis ruminants and pursuing pastoralist resilience through improved animal health service delivery in the Somali region. Later, in 2018, I worked with the VSF-Suisse program in Addis Ababa before becoming the learning and development team leader.

What inspired you to work on One Health?

I am a veterinarian. At the beginning of my career, I did not appreciate the connection between animal health service delivery and human health services. But my experience in the One Health operational research with CCM opened my eyes to the scope and opportunities of One Health in my line of work better.

My parents are originally from Somali, but my father moved to Dire Dawa. Coming from a pastoralist family, I see the straightforward link between pastoralists lives and One Health. When I was a child, my dad used to tell me stories of how communities living in the lowland areas have the best life. They drink milk, eat meat and have a great life. But growing up I have also witnessed realities that are the complete opposite of these stories. Pastoralist communities face many challenges attributed to both nature and policy. They carry many burdens. The effects of climate change are making their lives worse. They have not been integrated into the national system, for example in the healthcare system, because of the fear that they will leave. In the past, the rains did not fail them as they do now, so they had more water but now access to water in many pastoral areas has reduced drastically. Without adequate water, they are unable to maintain their animals and their lives and livelihoods are threatened. They have a highly nature-dependent lifestyle and the One Health approach is very important in ensuring the survival and sustainability of these vulnerable communities.

From your experience, both from working in the field and from your family life, what benefits do One Health projects like HEAL bring to communities?

I have spent the majority of my career working in the field. I saw how a single activity can change people’s lives. Think of a poor widow with six children with only five to six goats. She will prioritise buying medicine for her children over her goats. This is where the support from HEAL and other One Health projects can come in. It costs on average USD2 to vaccinate up to four to five goats. These USD2 can save goats which will give the widow milk and healthy children.

Who are most vulnerable in pastoralist communities and how is the HEAL project planning to support these communities?

In pastoral communities, like in other societies, women are more vulnerable to the burden of catastrophes compared to men. They have less ownership and control over livestock and have a limited say in their sale and exchange. HEAL mainstreams gender aspects in its interventions. We look at the whole pastoralist system in our work. During the project’s inception phase, a gender and One Health context analysis was done to understand the gaps and ways of integrating gender into One Health.

As the interim regional project manager of HEAL, what is most exciting about your new role and what keeps you up at night?

The regional nature of the HEAL project is advantageous because it gives us a chance to integrate interventions by taking into account the experiences from the other countries. If a certain intervention does not work in Ethiopia, we should look at the aspects to adjust when we’re implementing our activities in Kenya and/or Somalia given the similarity of contexts in the lowland areas of these countries. The challenge would be the level of adoption of One Health at country level. The current state of One Health adoption differs in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. We need to do more and get more resources and time to implement One Health projects in these countries and to move towards clearer policies where needed.

What do you think your success will mean to women and girls in rural communities?

Whenever I am asked this question, I always think about this 10-year-old boy I came across while working in Siti zone, Somali region. He was playing with his seven-year-old sister; he came to me and said, ‘please take my sister with you so she can be as educated and successful as you are!’ I hope my success will inspire communities and convince them to send their daughters to school.

HEAL is a big regional project with multiple implementing partners. From your experience, what do you think will be most helpful in ensuring HEAL achieves its goals?

I have mostly worked in developing, managing, monitoring and evaluating veterinary and public health programs. In particular, my focus has been on emergency preparedness, response and resilience, livelihood security, climate change adaptation, nutrition, One Health and food security in pastoral communities and among internally displaced persons.

I strongly believe in the importance and benefits of joint coordination and collaboration among groups, agencies and individuals in achieving a project’s goals. In short, my experience and expertise has equipped me to support and contribute to achieving better impact in people’s lives through multidisciplinary and multisectoral projects such as HEAL.

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) Impact at Scale (I@S) program recently share examples for identifying, analysing and integrating scaling tools into agricultural research for development programs.  

At an October 2020 scaling webinar for the science leaders community, which was co-organised by GIZ Task Force on Scaling and CGIAR Science Leaders Group, Iddo Dror, leader of the I@S program, shared real-life learnings from the program’s analysis of scaling tools and practices with CGIAR science leaders (see a related report here). He also presented the program’s and the CGIAR Research Program on Livestock’s first-hand experiences in blending advanced scaling and innovation tools within CGIAR for assessing unique frameworks and advising on selection of scaling tools and practices for projects and programs.

Since late 2019, I@S has been testing and validating the Scaling Framework together with the CGIAR Research Program on Livestock (Livestock CRP). The Scaling Framework synthesizes approaches and tools developed within and outside CGIAR such as the Scaling Scan, ASAT and Scaling Readiness. The process starts with preliminary data collection about the project that wants to scale innovations. This is followed by meetings with the core project team to present the framework and the tools, to discuss the project’s vision of success and agree on the scope of the work, which is then articulated into a study plan. The study plan can include one, two or all three I@S Scaling Framework modules.  

The first module is a ‘light track’. In the light track, following the scaling plan, a series of scaling workshops are organized. Participants include key project stakeholders such as government and national partners, private sector organizations and other international organizations working in the areas the project operates. Using the adjusted tools of Scaling Scan and ASAT, a validated scaling ambition for the project is formulated and several scaling ingredients and pathways are identified. Projects teams aiming to consolidate their overall scaling strategy and develop shared understanding among the team members and key project stakeholders might choose to finish the I@S study process with the light track. 

The second module is the ‘standard track’. In addition to the light track, the standard track includes a deep dive into the Scaling Readiness tool. In consultation with the project team, the I@S team profiles the key characteristics of the project design and the relevance of the project for achieving impact as well as the innovation the project aims to develop or test. Afterwards, the I@S team guides the identification of the set of innovations that need to be combined to achieve scaling of the project innovations and profiles the ‘innovation package’. Scaling Readiness is based on specific definitions of innovations and uses existing evidence sources such as journal articles, books, book chapters and technical reports to assess the maturity and use of the innovations. It documents all resources that provide evidence for the maturity and use of innovations of the project for the specific contexts in which the project operates and the complementary innovations necessary to scale the project innovations in an evidence appendix. In cases where evidence is unavailable, a set of interviews complement the evidence claims. Scaling Readiness produces a scaling readiness report and a scaling plan for addressing the scaling bottlenecks identified in the scaling readiness report. Project teams that are looking for evidence-based site-specific recommendations for scaling strategies and activities might choose to finish the I@S framework with the standard track. 

The third module is the ‘extended track’. The extended track includes support for scaling projects in implementing the scaling plan. Based on the specific needs of the project, the implementation support is customized. It can include dashboards that can provide updates about the performance of the implementation of the scaling plan, and additional elements that inform about project management and partnership aspects. It can also include recommendations for preparing scaling activities in the planning of work and budget documents, and recommendations for preparing new project proposals for complementing the project or for the next phase of the project. The extended track links the findings of the scaling study with implementation teams and organizational support services of the project partners. I@S uses state-of-the-art digital tools (such as Microsoft Dynamics, Teams, Power BI, Decisions, Smartsheet, Session Lab, etc.) in preparing the dashboards using live real-time data from core CGIAR systems so that the extended track can contribute to overall capacity development of the project teams and the hosting organizations of the projects in the long term. Project teams that want to benefit from the full package of the scaling support services choose the extended track. 

At the webinar, other CGIAR scaling specialists including Marc Schut of CGIAR’s International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and Wageningen University, Maria Boa of CGIAR’s International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and Christiano Rossigloni of CGIAR WorldFish, also shared the scaling ambitions for their tools and practices, the solutions the tools developed for collecting evidence and generating information, and the limitations of their tools and practices. 

The webinar also included a presentation by Julian Colomer, senior manager results and program performance at the CGIAR System Management Office. He said that the insights from the webinar and subsequent discussions can contribute to designing and developing the CGIAR stage gating process more effectively in 2021 and onwards.  

GIZ’s Steffen Entenman appreciated the insights from the experiences of the I@S program in designing, testing and developing a scaling framework for a CGIAR centre.  

ILRI I@S will continue advancing its scaling framework by adding new project, innovation and stakeholder management modules such as the collaborative project management design platform using Smartsheet; automated analysis and customized advanced data collection and visualizations using Microsoft Dynamics and Power BI platforms as well as a social network science-based fit for purpose partnership management tool. For more information contact i.dror@cgiar.org  

Download Dror’s presentation: https://hdl.handle.net/10568/111134 

More about the webinar can be found in this brief. 

Read a recent case example from the ILRI I@S Framework: Scaling Readiness report and scaling plan for training and certification approach for small-scale pig producers in Uganda 

In the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic, supplies can cross international borders, but the same is not always true for people. The Epidemiology and Control of peste des petits ruminants (ECo-PPR) project team recently ordered diagnostic test kits that will be used across all six study countries in East and West Africa. The tests are used to detect whether a sheep or goat is infected with peste des petits ruminants (PPR), a contagious viral disease. In addition to ordering supplies, beginning a new research project also requires training researchers.

In the past, we would organize in-person trainings for the project researchers. In an interdisciplinary study, not every country has an expert in epidemiology, economics and gender, for example, but we address this gap by training and learning from each other. Veterinary activities are considered essential services in many countries which allows research to be done domestically, but international movement would be difficult for the trainers due to COVID-19 related travel restrictions. Instead of the usual in-person training, we moved online.

With over 10 research tools including a household survey, market survey and outbreak investigation to introduce, we decided to create something that resembles online school. The trainers designed a 5-10-minute video for each tool with built in activities and resources and posted them on YouTube. We used the videos to support the first training with 15 West African veterinarians, socio-economists and lab technicians which ran 31 August – 7 September 2020. We asked training participants to do ‘homework’ by watching the videos and doing the related activities before a daily virtual session. This allowed participants to go over the presentations as often as needed. The virtual sessions of one and a half to two hours per day were used for troubleshooting, discussing issues particular to individual countries and answering questions. To monitor progress and to stimulate discussion, the trainers also used online polls during the virtual sessions. Participants appreciated the flexibility of the coordinating team but found the long pauses waiting for everyone to complete online poll questions tedious. The trainers worried people did not have enough time to complete some activities outside of the session.

For the training in East Africa, which ran 5–9 October 2020, the trainers adopted a hybrid approach to address the challenges experienced in West Africa. Participants gathered for in-person localized meetings for one week to train in a centralized place away from their duty station that had good internet and few distractions. They came together each day for a virtual meeting that included participants from Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. This approach seemed to work well because it allowed for in-person interactions within each country and virtual interactions with the trainers and fellow researchers in neighbouring countries. One participant shared liking ‘that it was quite interactive despite the fact that we could not all be together.’ Multiple participants noted the limited time to cover all the research tools in detail in only one week.

We have yet to see how training virtually will affect the research project in the long run, but in the short run, we will continue to experiment with new ways of communicating. Virtual trainings are not perfect, but until we can again move as freely as mailed packages, this is our new normal.

The training materials for the ECo-PPR project, including videos, can be found on the ECo-PPR YouTube channel and on CGSpace.

Vast disparities in the number of instruments used to validate satellite climate sensors data have woefully underestimated the true peak temperatures of African rangelands, says Tom Dowling, a geographer and climate change scientist at King’s College, London. This means that scientists have probably been understating the impact that climate change will have on these regions and possibly throughout much of the Global South, where validation instruments are scarce.

Dowling led a team that built a land surface temperature validation site at the International Livestock Research Institute’s (ILRI) Kapiti Research Station in August 2018. He spoke about some of the lessons he’s learned since then with host Simon Clark on Brilliant, a YouTube science channel.

Validation stations compare the actual surface temperatures of a given region to the temperature imputed to it by climate satellites orbiting thousands of kilometres above. Those satellites register emissions at different points on the electromagnetic spectrum to calculate the likely land surface temperatures across vast regions of the earth. But to determine if these calculations are correct, scientists conduct validation tests ‘ground-truthing’ the calculations against actual, measured temperatures.

For practical reasons, most scientists tend to build stations near the universities where they are posted. Unfortunately, says Dowling, ‘if you look at a map of validation stations, you see that there over 50 stations in the United States, but only two in the continent of Africa’.

That disparity wouldn’t be problem except that different land surfaces reflect different amounts of heat. Think, for example, of how much more stifling it is to enter a black car parked under the summer sun than a white one. The difference in how much heat a surface reflects—in scientific terms, how good an object is at retaining or readmitting radiation in the thermal portion of the spectrum—is called ‘emissivity’. And it turns out that African rangelands like those where Kapiti is located are much more emissive than previously estimated—by as much as 20 degrees Celsius, Dowling says.

For Dowling, the lessons go beyond this specific case study. ‘Ultimately data like these inform government action or inaction on climate change’, he says. International agreements that simply assume that tropical and subtropical regions follow more or less the same pattern as North America or Western Europe can fail to pick up on important differences. ‘More than just data, we need expertise from places other than the developed world. We need to involve academics from host countries. I learned so much from local experts who know and work in area—I couldn’t have completed this work without them.’

For more on the project, including how an amorous giraffe may have derailed the whole project, the entire YouTube video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZQTVvJaJLA

Nairobi, Kenya – At a masked, socially-distanced ceremony held on 24 Sep 2020 at the Swara Plains Conservancy, the International Livestock Research Institute’s (ILRI’s) director general Jimmy Smith declared that ILRI’s Kapiti Research station would preserve itself in perpetuity as a Kenyan national wildlife conservancy. 

The Kapiti Research Station, in Machakos County in Kenya, sits on 32,000 acres of land with an abundance of wildlife and livestock. Adjacent to the Nairobi National park, the only park in the world located within a capital city, Kapiti and the neighbouring Swara Plains Conservancy, which made a similar commitment, will nearly triple the safe land available to the park’s animals. 

Tourism and Wildlife Cabinet Secretary, Najib Balala, gave Smith a certificate of registration for ILRI’s Kapiti Wildlife Conservancy and said, ‘Today marks a historic day because the Nairobi National park is not big enough to meet the ecological requirements of its wildlife population. Land from ILRI’s Kapiti Research Station and the Swara Plains will help conserve wildlife that can now move between the corridors in the Nairobi National Park and the Athi-Kapiti plains.’  

Cabinet Secretary Balala, who received a tour of the research station, said he looks forward to enhancing collaborations with ILRI on preserving the biodiversity of Kenya’s wildlife. In particular, he encouraged future collaborations with the Wildlife Research and Training Institute (WRTI) in Naivasha, a newly inaugurated research institute that will develop a knowledge base to mitigate current threats faced by wildlife.  

ILRI’s commitment to Kenya’s wildlife comes at a critical time: The world is faced with an ongoing pandemic caused by viruses that can spread from one system of animals to another. ‘We know that urbanization and land encroachment are drivers of disease spillover from wildlife to humans’, said Smith. ‘By making this commitment, ILRI is honoured to not only enhance the movement of wildlife but support the government’s efforts to preserve biodiversity.’ 

The Kapiti Research Station has a long history of investigating the interactions between wildlife and livestock. Scientists at ILRI have been working on developing a vaccine for diseases at the wildlife-livestock interface such as malignant catarrhal fever that is caused by a virus during wildebeest calving season and affects cattle. 

More recently, with the support from King’s College London, UK, and Moredun Research Institute; ILRI scientists at Kapiti were able to set up East Africa’s first international standard land surface temperature validation suite, with equipment provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration–Jet Propulsion Laboratory (NASA-JPL), which is funded by the UK Space Agency and the UK National Centre for Earth Observation. This equipment will help predict pest and disease outbreaks and provide other valuable information.

In the ceremony at the Swara Plains Conservancy, Smith noted the importance of rangelands such as Kapiti. ‘Rangelands make up roughly one-third of the earth’s terrestrial surface and are indispensable to both wildlife and livestock,’ he said. ‘Nowhere is this more evident that in east and southern Africa where wildlife and livestock either compete for land, edible vegetation and water resources or are managed synergistically. By designating our Kapiti Research station a conservancy, we will support the aspirations of the Government of Kenya’s Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife to expand access of the Nairobi National Park and facilitate collaboration on research and training with the Kenya Wildlife Training Institute to tackle critical issues at the wildlife-livestock interface.’

For more information on ILRI’s Kapiti Research Station: a livestock, environmental and agricultural research station in southeastern Kenya. Nairobi, Kenya: ILRI.

Ethiopian chicken farmer with her children (photo credit: ILRI).

ILRI animal geneticist/breeder Tadelle Dessie is one of many authors of a new paper in the Journal of Nutrition with partners from Harvard and Purdue universities and Boston College, in the US; the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) in South Africa; and the Addis Continental Institute of Public Health and the Ethiopian Institute for Agricultural Research (EIAR), in Ethiopia.

The new paper is based on an intervention made by the African Chicken Genetic Gains project in Ethiopia, led by Dessie.

Among the main findings of the paper is the following.

A chicken production intervention with or without
nutrition-sensitive behavior change communication
may have benefited child nutrition
and did not increase morbidity.

A commentary about this paper (behind a paywall), Building the evidence base around poultry production for nutrition is written by Chessa K Lutter, who says:

Africa the only region in the world where the number of stunted children has not declined.

Therefore, the paper by Passarelli and colleagues in this issue of the Journal of Nutrition, in which the authors report the positive effect on the growth of Ethiopian children due to chicken production . . . provides important insights for the global development and nutrition community. . . .

‘Development experts have identified small-scale chicken production as a promising intervention to improve child nutrition through several causal pathways simultaneously. At the same time, poultry production can also pose the risk of increasing child diarrhea as chickens are a source of Salmonella enterica and Campylobacter jejuni.

‘The cluster-randomized 3-armed trial described by Passarelli and colleagues was designed to disentangle the effects of 1) a basic intervention, comprised of genetically improved chickens paired with basic husbandry guidance; 2) the basic intervention plus an SBC intervention; and 3) a control on the growth and morbidity of children 0–36 months old. . . .

At the end of an ∼18-mo intervention period, children in households that received the basic intervention . . .  consumed significantly more eggs, had greater dietary diversity, and had significantly greater height for age z score compared with the control group. . . . Importantly, the basic intervention did not increase child anemia, diarrhea, fever, or vomiting. . . .

‘Eggs have been called out as a particularly important food for young children, while household poultry production has been hailed as a way to improve household food security. One 60-g egg is packed with an array of vitamins and minerals, essential fatty acids and proteins, and other bioactive factors important for growth and cognitive development. . . .

‘Passarelli and colleagues’ study also shows the importance of simultaneously addressing multiple pathways through which household poultry production can lead to improved child nutrition, including through direct consumption of eggs, improved household income, and greater maternal empowerment.’

More excerpts from the paper itself follow.

‘The balance of potential benefits and harms caused by domestic animals has raised questions about whether chicken production should be promoted as a nutrition strategy. Whereas previous research on this topic has largely come from observational data, we assessed the effects of chicken production, with or without a nutrition-sensitive behavior change intervention, on child nutrition and health outcomes through a cluster-randomized trial in rural Ethiopia. We also evaluated the impact of the intervention on intermediaries, including diet, income, women’s decision making, and environmental conditions.’

‘[I]ncreased egg production could benefit both diets and income—especially the income of women, who tend to control cash from egg sales in Ethiopia’ and that ‘In contrast with previous evidence showing harmful effects of homestead chicken production on WASH conditions, we found no evidence that the intervention worsened the WASH environment, nor that it adversely affected child health or nutrition outcomes.’

‘In conclusion, we found that an animal production intervention and an additional nutrition-sensitive behavior change intervention may have been associated with increased child growth compared with control households. Our results also showed that adding a nutrition-sensitive behavior change component (the ACGG + ATONU intervention) was associated with improved child feeding behaviors as compared with the ACGG intervention alone, and that the BCC improved women’s empowerment in chicken production compared with control households. We found no evidence of harmful effects on child morbidity or anemia. Given the multiple pathways through which chicken production could affect nutrition—including women’s empowerment, income, diet quality, and WASH—it is possible that small-scale production of chicken and eggs can help supplement household diets and income.’

Read the research paper: A chicken production intervention and additional nutrition behavior change component increased child growth in Ethiopia: A cluster-randomized trial, 11 Jul 2020, by Simone Passarelli, Ramya Ambikapathi, Nilupa S Gunaratna, Isabel Madzorera, Chelsey R Canavan, Abdallah R Noor, Amare Worku, Yemane Berhane, Semira Abdelmenan, Simbarashe Sibanda, Bertha Munthali, Tshilidzi Madzivhandila, Lindiwe M Sibanda, Kumlachew Geremew, Tadelle Dessie, Solomon Abegaz, Getnet Assefa, Christopher Sudfeld, Margaret McConnell, Kirsten Davison, Wafaie Fawzi, in the Journal of Nutrition nxaa181.

Learn more about the African Chicken Genetic Gains project.

Lilian Satia, a young dairy entrepreneur in Nakuru, Kenya (photo credit: ILRI/Georgina Smith).

Yesterday (7 Sep 2020) the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and four partners—Bidco Land O’Lakes, Corteva Agriscience, Forage Genetics International (FGI) and Land O’Lakes Venture37—announced their new alliance in a project to strengthen dairy production in central Kenya. The project aims to help 5,000 smallholder dairy women to advance their sustainable farming practices and to ease the shortage of dairy products in the country, which the Kenya Dairy Board estimates at 2.2 billion litres annually.

This group of private-sector, non-profit and research organizations will engage in a two-year program designed to increase the supply of nutritional dairy products available to local communities and guide women smallholder farmers in methods that should bolster their production of nutrient-rich forages (corn silage and hay) for their dairy cattle, which should in turn raise their milk yields while reducing their production costs.

‘Kenya has the highest per capita consumption of milk in Africa, at 120 litres per year, compared with the African average of 50 litres a year’, said Joseph Anampiu, Commercial Unit Leader for East Africa at Corteva Agriscience.

Kenya milk consumption is projected to nearly double to 220 litres a year by 2030, backed by an annual growth rate in milk demand of 7%.

‘As a leader in agricultural innovation and a collaborator with farmers, we are committed to provide tools and training to help increase yield stability, optimize inputs and improve climate resilience.’

This new alliance combines Corteva Agriscience’s leadership in agricultural inputs and support of smallholder farmers with FGI’s private-sector leadership in the forage industry. ILRI brings locally based, world-renowned forage R&D capabilities and livestock management practices to the program. Land O’Lakes Venture37 will contribute its extensive experience adapting advanced technologies and techniques to the smallholder farmer level and facilitating last-mile delivery of key inputs. Bidco Land O’Lakes, a Kenya-based feed manufacturer, will work closely with these collaborators to offer compound feed that complements effective forages.

‘This alliance, through its advancement of animal nutrition in Kenya’s dairy sector, is simultaneously advancing human nutrition and human success—a shining example of Land O’Lakes’ guiding purpose: feeding human progress’, said John Ellenberger, executive director of Land O’Lakes Venture37.

Through its combination of private-sector investment, local expertise, applied data and technologies and last mile delivery, this alliance is helping to make markets work more effectively for lower-resource populations.

‘Strategic alliances like these are a foundational element of our current work and future ambitions.’

Tiffany Atwell, global government and industry affairs leader at Corteva Agriscience, highlighted the alliance during a panel presentation at the African Green Revolution Forum Virtual Summit that highlighted the critical role women play in agriculture as well as how government policies can build more inclusive agriculture and food systems.

About Corteva Agriscience
Corteva Agriscience is a publicly traded, global pure-play agriculture company that provides farmers around the world with the most complete portfolio in the industry—including a balanced and diverse mix of seed, crop protection and digital solutions focused on maximizing productivity to enhance yield and profitability. The company is committed to working with stakeholders throughout the food system as it fulfills its promise to enrich the lives of those who produce and those who consume, ensuring progress for generations to come. Corteva Agriscience became an independent public company on June 1, 2019 and was previously the Agriculture Division of DowDuPont. www.corteva.com

About Land O’Lakes Venture37
Venture37 is a nonprofit helping communities around the world build economies by strengthening local agriculture, helping agribusinesses create jobs and linking farmers to markets. Since 1981, it has implemented over 315 integrated dairy, livestock and crop development programs in nearly 80 countries. Land O’Lakes Venture37’s long-standing affiliation with Land O’Lakes, Inc.—one of America’s largest farmer-owned cooperatives, with nearly 100 years of expertise in dairy, animal nutrition, crop inputs and agricultural insights and technologies—sets it apart. Land O’Lakes, Inc. supports Venture37 projects as part of its enterprise purpose of ‘feeding human progress’ at home and around the world. www.landolakesventure37.org

About Bidco Land O’Lakes
Bidco Land O’Lakes is an animal feed processing plant based in Nakuru, Kenya. Land O’Lakes, Inc., one of America’s largest farmer-owned cooperatives and a leader in global animal nutrition, and Bidco Africa, one of East Africa’s leading consumer product companies, have invested an estimated USD12 million into the plant. The animal feed business aims to produce over 28 metric tons per hour of animal nutrition products. The fully automated plant helps to ensure quality and accuracy in production and reduce the chance of human error. www.landolakesinc.com

About Forage Genetics International
For more than 25 years, Forage Genetics International has led the forage industry with innovative genetic discoveries, variety developments and cutting-edge product introductions. As the industry’s leading provider of forage solutions, we breed, develop and produce premier alfalfa seed. Our highly staff delivers packaging, distribution and training services to complement our product offerings—all customized to meet the varied needs of our customers. www.foragegenetics.com

About International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)
The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) is a non-profit institution helping people in low- and middle-income countries to improve their lives, livelihoods and lands through the animals that remain the backbone of small-scale agriculture and enterprise across the developing world. Specifically, ILRI works with partners to improve food and nutritional security and to reduce poverty and environmental degradation in developing countries through research for efficient, safe and sustainable use of livestock. Employing more than 600 people, including scientists from more than 40 countries, ILRI is a CGIAR research centre co-hosted by Kenya and Ethiopia and with 14 other offices across Africa and Asia. https://www.ilri.org/

Read this press release on the website of Corteva Agriscience.

Rabies vaccination campaign in Laikipia (photo credit: Laikipia Wildlife Forum).

Today we celebrate the World Zoonoses Day. To raise awareness about the risks of zoonotic disease, a recent study by scientists from a cohort of institutes including the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) shows the value of grass roots vaccination campaigns against rabies, a zoonotic disease, which is transmitted from animals to humans and caused by the rabies virus.

Over a period of three years (2015, 2016 and 2017) the Laikipia Rabies Vaccination Campaign (LRVC), vaccinated 13,155 dogs from various pastoral communities in Kenya’s Laikipia County. The initiative, which takes place annually, has grown from a local volunteer-effort to a large-scale program that is attempting to eliminate rabies at the landscape scale.

Even though rabies is spread by dogs, bats, skunks and foxes; domestic dogs are the common reservoir of this virus. The disease kills nearly 59,000 people around the world annually and 99% of these deaths are caused by dog-mediated rabies. Symptoms of rabies include fever, headaches, salivation, muscle spasms, paralysis and mental confusion. The disease is, however, a 100% vaccine preventable neglected tropical disease.

In 2016, World Health Organization (WHO), the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and the Global Alliance for Rabies Control released a global framework for the elimination of dog-mediated human rabies to guide the elimination efforts of this disease by 2030.

While the rabies elimination strategy highlights five key components, some of the strategy’s critical success factors include long-term political and social commitment, community engagement and awareness about rabies, sustainable vaccination of 70% of at-risk dog populations, reaching remote and rural at-risk populations, promotion of vaccine banks, and maintaining trained and motivated personnel.

Significant challenges exist in sub-Saharan Africa where vaccination efforts and large-scale campaigns, which focus on rural areas, often have mixed results. This is largely because mass vaccinations of domestic dogs requires significant resources and adequate planning and implementation time. In Kenya, the National Rabies Elimination Coordination Committee oversees efforts to eliminate dog-mediated rabies. It is coordinated by the Zoonotic Disease Unit (ZDU) and the ministries of health, and agriculture livestock and fisheries.

Dishon Muloi, postdoctoral fellow at ILRI and a co-author of the paper from the study, which looked at the development, implementation and  effectiveness of grass roots mass dog rabies vaccination campaign, said that ‘by strengthening and expanding grass roots vaccination campaigns, such as LRVC, and continually raising awareness and educating communities on rabies control, we can continue to move towards a goal of zero human deaths from dog transmitted rabies by 2030.’

Eric Fevre, professor of veterinary infectious diseases at the University of Liverpool and joint appointed principal scientist at ILRI said, ‘this was an animal health intervention with important public health outcomes. While significant progress has been made with the LRVC with more and more dogs vaccinated each year and in achieving direct benefits to the broader community; it is clear that to achieve a 70% coverage of domestic dogs, community mobilization is only one piece of a complex puzzle.’

This study was funded by a range of donors including the CGIAR A4NH Program and scientists from a cohort of institutes that included the Field Museum; the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute; the University of Edinburgh; ILRI; the Karatina University, the Maasai Mara University; the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO); the Kenya Zoonotic Disease Unit; the Washington State University; the Zoological Society of London; the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Fisheries; the County Government of Laikipia; the University of Liverpool and the Mpala Research Centre.

Download the full study here
Read about the earlier work done in Laikipia county on rabies here
Learn more about ILRI’s work on zoonotic disease

Cylindrical liquid nitrogen sample storage tanks. Nairobi-based diplomatic missions visited the ILRI campus in Nairobi on 5 December 2019, visiting the Aziz  Biorepository (photo credit: ILRI/Paul Karaimu). 

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) stores biological samples from a diversity of species, which provide an immense genetic library for research in zoonosis, genetics, reproductive technology and breed preservation.

In 2013, ILRI developed a facility known as ‘Azizi’, the Swahili word for treasure, for keeping in long-term storage the biological materials collected by the institute during the course of routine  research activities. These materials include a wide range of samples such as blood, serum, DNA, RNA, tissue, and pathogens from insects, livestock and wildlife species in Africa. They are stored in cryogenic freezers under liquid nitrogen at the Azizi ‘biorepository’, which can hold up to half a million biological samples.

While Azizi is unlike the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, in that it does not store seeds which can be regrown, the repository could become the go-to place for genetic material for studying animal diversity and adaptation that contributes to global food security. Located at the ILRI campus in Nairobi, Kenya, this one-of-a-kind storage facility can be a treasure trove for researchers looking into understanding animal genetic diversity, animal disease evolution and resistance mechanisms of animal diseases.

The over 450,000 samples at the Azizi biorepository are available for use by researchers across the world under an open access policy but there is an application process that is followed for each request, which is reviewed and if approved, accompanied by an ILRI-endorsed materials transfer agreement.

‘With a samples catalogue dating back over 30 years, this repository is a time capsule that gives biological archaeologists a chance to explore the changes that have taken place in the species populations of the collected samples over this period,’ said Steve Kemp, leader of the ILRI genetics research program. He added that the Azizi samples can help in studying the way organisms have mutated causing changes in livestock disease patterns or how livestock species are being selected by humans, for example, for improved milk production. ‘Thirty years may not seem like a long time, but in that time, diseases have come and gone; thousands of generations of pathogens have passed; agriculture and climate have changed and all of this can be seen or evaluated in the biological samples stored in Azizi’s frozen “strata”,’ said Kemp.

Early this year, Andrew Jackson, a senior lecturer in parasite biology at the Institute of Infection and Global Health from the University of Liverpool published a study on antigenic variation on African trypanosomes, a disease that has a profound negative impact on the livestock productivity in sub-Saharan Africa. When specifically working on Trypanosome vivax, his team used 20 T. vivax blood samples from the Azizi biorepository representing isolates from Uganda, Togo, Ivory Coast and Nigeria.

‘It would not have been possible for me to collect samples directly from the field in the different countries within the study period. Because Azizi provides an archive of materials and data from natural pathogen populations, I was able to access them without having to develop new working relationships with field biologists, which is time consuming and requires funding,’ says Jackson.

According to him, livestock population genetic data, such as is available at the Azizi biorepository, will be key in future drug resistance and vaccine design research on veterinary trypanosomes and will be needed by laboratory scientists who do not necessarily have ongoing connections with the field.

While many projects have used its samples, others have contributed to the Azizi repository. These include the People Animals and their Zoonosis (PAZ), an integrated response system for emerging infectious disease in East Africa (AVID), the Infectious Disease of East African Livestock’ (IDEAL) and the African Bovine Trypanosomiasis projects. For example, the IDEAL project contributed samples to Azizi that were collected between 2007 and 2009 from 548 East African Shorthorn Zebu cattle in western Kenya. With consent from the cattle owners, these samples were bio-banked for use in follow-up studies of cattle health in the region.

The biorepository hastens project work by reducing the amount of time needed to visit the field for samples. Rebecca Callaby, a postdoctoral researcher from the University of Edinburgh and author of a recently published paper, was involved in the IDEAL project. She says the Azizi facility saved time and money in her study.

‘I was able to get the samples I needed without having to go collect them in the field. And because the samples at Azizi are very well catalogued, I found what I needed quickly.’ She further added that ‘because of the data available on animal sample at the facility, we found that fewer animals need to be tested in our study.’

For more information on Azizi biorepository contact: Steve Kemp.

Her postgraduate research on rabies made her realize the seriousness of the disease and the reality of inadequate vaccination services in Amhara. ‘I struggled to get to the point where I am now,’ she says. ‘Four years ago, people were laughing at me for even thinking about giving door-to-door vaccination services. They were doubting my skills and ability as a woman to deliver vaccines’ says Netsanet. Before this, rabies vaccines in the region were provided by the government and residents only received the service if they paid for cost of transporting vaccines or paid for the full vaccine dose, which is used for five dogs at a time. To improve access to the vaccine, Netsanet decided to work with the Amhara Livestock Resources Development and Promotion Bureau and acquired a license for private door-to-door services.

It took her six months to get a licence for rabies vaccination after opening the clinic. Trying to change the common perception that ‘traditional medicine’ is better than vaccination was also another challenge in the first year of operation. Netsanet explains, ‘I am grateful now that business is thriving and people have started bringing animals to my clinic not only for vaccination but also for treatment; this is the result of my determination. Things can get tough and there might be no support in place.’ She added that ‘one should always be patient and focus on reaching their goal regardless of how long it takes.’

Netsanet provides rabies vaccination to 1,500 dogs a year. She maintains a positive relationship with the Amhara Livestock Resources Development and Promotion Bureau by providing timely reports on the number of vaccinated dogs each year. She also vaccinates dogs on behalf of the bureau when required.

Netsanet still faces challenges such as travelling from Bahir Dar to Bishoftu (about 550 kilometres) using public transport and taking the early bus to procure the vaccines and bring them safely home. There is also unfair competition where other private veterinary clinics have started providing rabies vaccines, often without a licence.

Ethiopia has a large livestock population. Accounting for a quarter of national GDP and 40% of agricultural GDP, livestock play a crucial role in the country’s development. But the growth of the sector has been low due to among other challenges, high disease prevalence and inefficient animal health service delivery. Lack of integration of the public and private sector is one of the main reasons associated with the poor veterinary service delivery. Veterinary services in Ethiopia are primarily provided by the public sector with clinics set up in many areas but the absence of appropriate policy has limited the involvement of the private sector.

In 2019, the Health of Ethiopian Animals for Rural Development (HEARD) project was established under the Ministry of Agriculture to improve veterinary service delivery in the country. The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the Ethiopian Veterinary Association (EVA) jointly implement the project component that is building the capacities of veterinary service providers. Part of HEARD’s work is to support the rolling out of a ‘veterinary service rationalization roadmap’ developed by the Livestock Value Chain through Public and Private Dialogue (LVC-PPD) project in 2014. The framework seeks to increase the participation of the private sector in veterinary service delivery by supporting context-relevant public-private partnerships in the country.

To help ensure better and rationalized veterinary service delivery that addresses local needs, ILRI and EVA, in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture and regional livestock resources development promotion bureaus, established PPP task forces in Ethiopia’s Amhara, Oromia and Somali regions in November 2019. The task force members, 13 in each region, are comprised of private and public service providers, livestock producers, laboratory service providers and researchers in universities.

The task forces are responsible for identifying and addressing gaps in veterinary service provision, ensuring smooth implementation of HEARD project activities, establishing and enhancing working relationships between public and private service providers, and piloting and scaling out feasible PPP models using participatory approaches. They will also document and share best practices and lessons about selected working PPP models and other livestock service extension practices along the livestock value chain.

The formation of task forces on PPPs was proposed by both public and private service providers during a series of consultative workshops organized by ILRI and EVA in April and June 2019. These workshops identified and prioritized gaps in veterinary service delivery and participants proposed different PPP models for each region. Netsanet’s private vaccination service model was one of the models adopted by the task force. The other models include:

• sanitary mandate (an agreement between the government and private veterinarians for the latter to carry out vaccination services mostly during campaigns) with woreda (district) private sector partners. The government provides free vaccinations against important livestock diseases.
• sanitary mandate with linked regional-woreda-kebele (smallest unit of administration) private sector partners for vaccination services,
• mobile clinical services,
• clinical services by linked regional-woreda-kebele private clinics,
• community-based women vaccinators for controlling Newcastle disease,
• strategic community-based endoparasite and ectoparasite control by private veterinary service, and
• leasing kebele public health posts to jobless veterinary graduates.

The task force elects are looking forward to working together and strengthening PPPs in Ethiopia. Netsanet, who is the secretary elect of the Amhara task force, said she is looking forward to the role and to sharing her experience in improving veterinary service delivery by strengthening PPPs in Bahir Dar.

The HEARD project is led by the Ministry of Agriculture. ILRI and EVA jointly implement the second component of the project that is improving technical competences (knowledge, skills and attitudes) and incentives for veterinary service providers to deliver better and rationalized services. This component works in the Amhara, Somali and Oromia regions of Ethiopia.  

Read related articles: https://hdl.handle.net/10568/106724