New Year, new beginnings for PLE

ILRI DG: Jimmy Smith announced the far reaching changes

The start of a new year is for many of us, a time for reflection, a time for resolutions and often re-organisation of personal goals to meet our resolutions. For the People Livestock and Environment Theme, a new beginning is literally happening.

A new Theme Director, Dr Iain Wright takes over the mantle from 23 January 2012 (announced Dec 19, 2011 here).  A new research team – the ‘Sustainable Livestock Futures’ group, led by Dr. Mario Herrero, has also been incorporated in to PLE. However, the name remains the same. Mario’s group will continue to provide leadership at the institutional level with respect to work on sustainable futures.

As ILRI and the parent group the CGIAR move into new ways of collaborating in research, several PLE scientists will be actively engaged in carrying forward the CGIAR Research Programs (CRPs). These will be Mario Herrero leading the work on ILRI aspects CRP 7: Climate change; Polly Ericksen coordinating CRP 1.1: Drylands; while Alan Duncan will coordinate CRP1.2: Humid tropics.  Jan de Leeuw will coordinate CRP 5: Land, water and ecosystems.

In making the announcement, ILRI Director General Dr Jimmy Smith said: “As we move into new research planning and funding situations, we need to adjust the ways we organize ourselves to meet our commitments and maximize synergies across the institute“.

He said the, the Management Committee agreed to the changes, in late 2011. However, he added, “these are not set in stone and will evolve and be adapted as we proceed”.

 

PLE’s got talent, a lot of big ideas – and a bright future?

A recent meeting of the People Livestock and Environment (PLE) research theme of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) underlined the creative capacity and strong potential of team members. There is enough spark, flair and daring in the pool to embark on ambitious and relevant initiatives for the future of livestock, environment and crucially the people. The meeting took place from 12 to 13 December 2011 at the ILRI-Ethiopia campus in Addis Ababa. Under a broad agenda of change, it aimed to share ideas and information about the upcoming work of ILRI and the PLE team in the emerging CGIAR Consortium Research Programs (‘CRPs’).  The CRPs are intended to be the main modality for all CGIAR centers and imply significant changes in the way ILRI plans, executes and manages its research. Besides the CRP discussions, an important part of the meeting was to identify promising ‘big research ideas’ that the PLE team could develop in the coming year.

Highlights 2011 winner: Silvia Silvestri (Photo credit: ILRI/Ewen Le Borgne)

Prior to the forward-looking big idea discussions, the team also organized a light competition to elect the most important PLE achievement of 2011. Five team members introduced their highlight of 2011 – after which a small vote was organized to select the most striking highlight. The winner was Silvia Silvestri’s work on payments for environmental services. On the second day, a special session called ‘PLE’s got talent’ brought together eight presenters to introduce a big idea that in their eyes was worth developing into a large proposal. The eight ideas were:

1. A large proof of concept  to test carbon sequestration and ecosystem service schemes in rangelands (proposed by Mario Herrero)
2. A project to reduce volatility and increase the resilience of pastoral drylands (proposed by Jan de Leeuw)
3. A wide-ranging study of different development paradigms applied to the livestock sector (proposed by Alan Duncan)
4. A project on the efficient uses of biomass in semi-arid areas as one of the critical areas in sustainable livestock management (proposed by Amare Haileslassie)
5. Investigating ways that Eastern African highland products could be branded and exploited by smallholder producers (proposed by Tilahun Amede)
6. Exploring linkages between  green economy concepts and approaches and livestock systems and services (proposed by Silvia Silvestri)
7. An initiative to improve the characterization of forage diversity and ILRI’s genebank (proposed by Alexandra Jorge)
8. A comparative study of policies and approaches to livestock development and appropriate pathways to the intensification of smallholder agriculture (proposed by Mario Herrero)

These eight ideas were distilled from a list of 17 ideas in total collected online via Survey Monkey in preparation for the PLE meeting. They were further discussed at an ILRI management retreat from 18-20 December.

Mario Herrero, one of the contenders, explains what happened in the process and his perspective of PLE’s future…

Will the big ideas survive the funding trial stage?

 

ILRI-PLE scientists embrace change, communication

PLE welcomes Iain Wright: he cuts cake with his predecessor Shirley Tarawali at the PLE meeting held in Addis Ababa recently. (photo credit: ILRI/Apollo Habtamu).

Communicate, Change! That is the new mantra of the People, Livestock and Environment (PLE) team at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).

During a one and a half days brainstorming retreat in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the thirty-strong  team from Eastern and West Africa and India, appreciated that more communication was necessary both within PLE and across other teams within ILRI as well as within the Consortium for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

In January 2012, the CGIAR embarks on over ten new CGIAR Consortium Research Programmes (CRPs), as the new way of doing research. This means that each CRP across the entire CGIAR system will have more than one centre working on it. This change affects not only every CG centre, such as ILRI, but also every team in each centre, such as PLE.

This will start a new approach to partnerships – working with CGIAR centres much more closely than has been the case in the past, closer collaboration with national research institutions, development partners and to a large extent policy makers.

Polly Ericksen observed that working with all these partners and policy-makers implies collaboration among the various disciplines. Communication is one of them.

Communication is indeed crucial to connect different actors but also to learn across CRPs as emphasised by Shirley Tarawali: “Communications will be really important to let all of us know what each of us is doing and avoid duplication”.

The big question then is: can we have an integrated approach to develop synergies with other CRPs? This approach would need integrators who understand the different parts trying to work together and attempt to unite them, change managers who understand processes and recognise that the new approach to research will involve changing both functional and institutional cultures. Change is never easy to manage or to go through.

The key challenges that PLE handles on behalf of ILRI are climate change adaptation and mitigation, sustainable intensification in small holder crop livestock systems, and vulnerability of marginal systems and peoples.

The retreat also gave an occasion for the PLE team to embrace change by bidding farewell to their outgoing theme director Shirley Tarawali and welcoming her successor, Iain Wright.

Speaking on behalf of the PLE staff, Alan Duncan praised Tarawali for building a capable team over the last five years; he further lauded her as a patient strategic and detailed person, a meticulous leader, a role model to emulate and a mentor to all PLE staff.

Incoming Director, Iain Wright, announced that the coming days would be days of change, challenge, communications and opportunity. The entire system has adopted a new way of research-through collaboration in the CRPs which brings with it a lot of challenges. Dealing with challenges requires effective communication, in order to make use of opportunities that arise in every situation, he said.

In January 2012, Tarawali will take up the newly-created post of Director of Institutional Planning in ILRI Nairobi.

 

Dairy intensification and milk market quality in Amhara region, Ethiopia

The first report from the ‘livestock intensification project on dairy value chains in India and Ethiopia’ (funded by the OPEC Fund for International Development) has just been released.

Entitled ‘dairy intensification and milk market quality in Amhara region, Ethiopia’, the project report by Addisu Bitew and colleagues report on a study to develop a systematic understanding of the links between market opportunities and productivity increases in livestock in Amhara region of Ethiopia, with a focus on dairy production.

Findings showed that milk marketing cooperatives were the dominant milk buyers from producers at all milk marketing quality levels. Milk marketing cooperatives have been increasing in number, although there were limitations in recruitment of members, and the capacity to collect, process and market milk. Veterinary and artificial insemination (AI) services were provided from district agricultural development offices, except for some villages that had veterinary clinics and AI centers.

Stall feeding and feeding of concentrates for crossbred dairy cattle was more prominent in high market quality sites compared to medium and low market quality sites, which indicated the level of feed intensification as the market quality improved. The contribution of grazing to total diet was higher for indigenous than crossbred cows. The proportion of crossbred cows exceeded that of indigenous cows in high market quality sites but the reverse applied in medium and low market quality sites. Milk yield data indicate that there is room for increasing average productivity by improving management practices.

The major constraints to dairy development related to: breeding (shortage of improved breeds and inefficient AI services); feeding (shortage of feed and water, and high feed cost); health (disease incidence, shortage and high prices of drugs, and limited veterinary service); and market- and dairy-derived income (low prices of milk and poor demand for milk during fasting season). Due consideration should be given to alleviate these problems to increase productivity and improve dairy-derived income.

Download the report

 

Drylands development in Eastern Africa: The policy context and recommendations

Policies, legal and institutional frameworks are core pillars of any conservation, natural resource management as well as development work at all societal levels. They define the relationships between people and resources and guide the interactions that ensue from such relationships for sustainability, growth and harmonious coexistence. In appreciation of the role that policy and laws play in biodiversity conservation and drylands development in Eastern Africa, a review was carried out on the regional and national policy contexts, which have a bearing on biodiversity conservation, pastoralism and drylands development.

The survey covered Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia and explored the economic value of the drylands. It was undertaken by ASARECA and its partner institutions – the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Egerton University, the International Union for the Conservation of  Nature (IUCN) and RECONCILE.

View a a summary of the project as published in the ASARECA-PAAP newsletter for December 2011.

The three DRAFT policy briefs published from the project are shared here:

Policy brief 1 ASARECA Regional

policy brief 2 Mara Case Study Brief

Policy brief 3 Tarangire Case Study

 

Livestock essential for food security in the pastoral areas of Africa – Ericksen

 There is need to “harness” the livestock resources of pastoral production systems so that they contribute to food security in East and Central Africa (ECA).  This “harnessing” will rely on the combined efforts of research and development to ensure a long term and sustainable future for pastoralism.

Speaking today at the General Assembly of the Association for Strengthening Agriculture in East and Central Africa (ASARECA), Dr Polly Ericksen said pastoral areas constitute the major land use in the drylands of the ECA and are home to millions of people.  However, the drylands have very high precipitation variability and droughts occur in regularly in three to four year cycles. This means that the mobility that pastoralists have traditionally relied upon to manage in the face of such harsh climate is increasingly constrained by various forms of land expropriation and fragmentation, further increasing degradation in the accessible grazing areas.

Dr Ericksen is a scientist with the People, Livestock and Environment (PLE) theme at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). She was speaking on the sub theme “Agricultural Development Challenges and Opportunities”. She observed that pastoral livestock productions systems are the most suitable and adapted land use in the ECA drylands, and currently the meat and milk produced by those systems contribute significantly to local, national and regional food security as well as the gross domestic product (GDP).

She further observed that poverty and food insecurity are prevalent among ECA pastoral communities and are becoming chronic for some groups, especially those who have very low herd sizes or have “dropped out” of livestock production all together.

Pastoralists’ participation in markets could be higher and more equitable, Dr Ericksen said, if more interventions were introduced into the pastoral system.

“Little research has been done on improving pastoral livestock breeds or supporting species diversification. Rangeland management studies and interventions are also lagging and could contribute greatly to enhancing livestock productivity”, said Dr. Ericksen.   She further added that maintain some form of mobility will always be key for pastoral production, and hence ensuring access to grazing and water resources is critical.

ASARECA is holding its first General Assembly 14^th – 16^th December 2011. Its theme is “Feeding our region in the 21^st Century”. ILRI’s Director General Jimmy Smith and Director for Communications, Bruce Scott are representing ILRI. Dr Smith is scheduled to make a presentation on The Role of ASARECA partner institutions.

ASARECA and ILRI_PLE have just completed a research project on Natural Resource Management and Biodiversity Conservation in the Drylands of Eastern and Central Africa.

Details of the General Assembly are found at: http://www.asareca.org/generalassembly/?page_id=38

words: Jane Gitau

 

ILRI seeks disease- and drought-resistant forages for livestock kept by smallholders

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) is evaluating drought-resistant, nutritious and palatable varieties of Napier grass to feed dairy cattle in Eastern Africa.

Speaking at a seminar on ‘Napier grass diversity studies and further application to other forages in ILRI, Ethiopia’, ILRI’s genebank manager, Maria Alexandra Jorge, said Napier grass (Pennisetum purpureum) continues to be the major feed for cut-and-carry stall-feeding (or ‘zero-grazing’) dairy systems in East Africa. Napier, commonly known as ‘elephant grass’, constitutes between 40 and 80% of the feed on such smallholder dairy farms.

The productivity of Napier grass in the region is threatened by emerging diseases and recurrent droughts. Jorge said the ILRI Gene Bank has received over one hundred DNA samples of materials from outside the ILRI system (from EMBRAPA, Brazil under the project Africa-Brazil, Agricultural innovation marketplace) whose DNA is being studied to see which ones may have additional diversity comparing to our current napier grass materials. The identified unique materials will be introduced to our collection and further tested in Eastern Africa for the unique characteristics being sought.

Climate change predictions for East Africa may indicate that the region will experience greater rainfall variability and more frequent and/or severe drought in some areas, with associated yield reductions in both feed and food crops. Unless new improved lines of Napier grass are made available, the livelihoods of farmers dependent on Napier grass as the main source of feed for their dairy animals may be harmed.

Jorge presented her findings at a seminar given at the end of a four-month stay at ILRI’s headquarters, in Nairobi, where she was attached to the Biosciences east and central Africa (BecA) hub as a fellow of an African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD) program. The ILRI Genebank is managed by staff of ILRI’s People Livestock and Environment Theme.

Shirley Tarawali, who directs ILRI’s People, Livestock and Environment Theme, was happy to see Alexandra Jorge successfully complete her rich experience at the ILRI BecA Hub. ‘The new technologies and methods Jorge has learned will advance ILRI’s research to protect and enhance Napier grass and other important feed resources in East Africa. Jorge’s training also strengthens the links between ILRI’s high-tech BecA Hub, in Nairobi, and the institute’s specialized forage laboratory and genebank, located in Ethiopia,’ said Dr Tarawali.

“It was a joy to work with Alexandra. She has demonstrated extraordinary work ethics, maturity and seriousness in what she does. She is also a very fast learner; she takes initiative in learning more things and she has great people’s skills”, said Dr Segenet Kelemu, the BecA hub Director.

The AWARD fellowship is a professional development program that strengthens the research and leadership skills of African women in agricultural science, empowering them to contribute more effectively to poverty alleviation and food security in sub-Saharan Africa. It is offered by the African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD), established in 2008, as a project of the Gender & Diversity Program of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).
AWARD Fellows benefit from a two-year career development program focused on establishing mentoring partnerships, building science skills, and developing leadership capacity. The fellowships are awarded on the basis of intellectual merit, leadership capacity, and the potential of the scientist’s research to improve the daily lives of smallholder farmers, especially women.

 

Mitigating climate change is a team effort – Mututho

There is need to join hands to understand, prevent (where possible) and mitigate the effects of climate change. This was said by the chairman of Kenya’s Parliamentary Committee for Agriculture, Hon. John Mututho when he launched the Climate Change Journalist of the Year Award in Nairobi.

Noting that journalists shape our environment through continuous good reporting, he urged them to take a front seat in creating a dialogue about climate change because it is affecting people negatively.

Mr Mututho is widely known for the bill regulating the hours and sale points of alcohol. He stressed that a local newspaper, The Daily Nation had taken up the anti-alcohol crusade since 2000, painfully reporting about the people who died of alcohol so that by time he introduced the bill in parliament, awareness had already been created. Now no one remembers the role the media had played previously.

“You are prophets like Martin Luther King, you must dream for us, have a big vision for us, and climate change is the one big thing now. It affects our safety security including our food security. You must play your part and give us both the information and direction to take. You are in the best position to talk to researchers, farmers, people in governance, the weather people and everyone else so that we understand what is happening around us”, he said.

The award and workshop were organised by the Participatory Ecological Land Use Management Program (PELUM). The award will recognise the journalist who publishes the most articles in the media concerning climate change within the twelve months of the year. He commended PELUM for taking up the role of tracking journalists on environment and climate change. “We must accept that our mistakes must be highlighted so that we learn to improve our practices”, he said.

Natural resources best for climate change mitigation

Environmental Policy Specialist, Philip Osano from ILRIs People Livestock and Environment theme said there is need to find new technology to help find new solutions to climate change. Such technology may include engineering.

Speaking at the same event, Osano said the question that determines our survival is: When things change, how vulnerable do you become? He noted that an economically endowed country such as the Netherlands has a bigger capacity to cope with unfriendly situations by building dykes while Bangladesh cannot, and therefore the people migrate to cope with the same situation – too much water.
The best form of adaptation however is to maintain our natural resources because they shield us from disaster. Osano observed that the tsunami in 2004 was most severe where the mangroves had been destroyed while almond farmers in California have suffered poor quality of fruit because the bees disappeared and no pollination could occur. They then had to start renting bees from a bee farmer- something they had previously not budgeted for.

Corporate social responsibility

Lauding the journalists for being willing to stand up and be counted in the climate change campaign, PLE Communication Specialist Jane Gitau urged the journalists to understand climate change and spread the knowledge and its impact as part of their social responsibility as journalists.

“We must strive to make climate change understood and help our people and government make the right choices in adaptation and mitigation”, she said, adding that media is today enjoying a vibrant environment in Kenya where there is no limit on the tools one can use to share the message.

Noting that ILRI is a good resource for research information on climate change, she said ILRI had chosen the area as one of its seven challenge areas recognising that the world’s climate is changing at unprecedented rates. African agriculture and pastoralism will suffer some of the greatest impacts of the twin threats of global warming and increasing climate variability.

The ‘Climate  Change Adaptation, Mitigations and Innovations Media Award’ was launched in Nairobi on 25 November , 2011.

 

PLE study partnerships to increase

At least two more students from the People Livestock and Environment theme (PLE) will benefit from a collaboration agreement recently signed between ILRI and the Wageningen Institute of Animal Science (WIAS). The MoU seeks to strengthen collaboration, which includes exploring opportunities for PhD students, scientist exchanges, and joint projects.

Speaking after her return from a successful trip to Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Theme director, Dr Shirley Tarawali said a number of opportunities for joint students have been identified as well as opportunities for scientists to spend 3-6 months at WIAS working on topics of mutual interest.

The study areas will revolve around all aspects of the environment including climate change and adaptation strategies. Currently, PLE has one PhD and four MSc students in the WIAS project.

Other possible study areas include value chains and environmental issues in collaboration with Aarhus University, Faculty of Agricultural Science, Denmark. The scholarships from both Universities will be geared towards developing the capacity of scientists working in Africa.

 

Adapting to drylands in Eastern Africa key to survival of biodiversity, livelihoods

Drylands occupy 75% of Eastern Africa and have a high economic value. In spite of this, their understanding remains scanty. Understanding how to adapt to the drylands of Eastern Africa is the key subject in a series of meetings taking place this week in Nairobi and Arusha. The Nairobi meeting, dubbed the National Dialogue workshop on Natural Resource Management and Biodiversity Conservation in the Drylands of Eastern and Central Africa, seeks to validate the findings at national level in each of the three countries where research was conducted. The three countries are Ethiopia, Tanzania and Kenya.

In Arusha, 27 and 28th October, researchers will meet with regional policy makers to identify cross-cutting issues and discuss opportunites for policy change.

Drylands, as defined by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) comprises of land within the arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid aridity zones (UNEP 1997). They are characterized by low, erratic and highly inconsistent rainfall levels and high coefficient of rainfall, limited by soil moisture, and show a gradient of increasing primary productivity. They occupy 90% in Kenya, 75% of Ethiopia and 67% of Tanzania. More than 60 million or 40% of the population live in drylands of Eastern Africa (estimates of 2002) covering an area of about 2 million km2.

As such, routinely gathering appropriate data on the real values of dryland biodiversity and livelihoods is advisable. This is one of the key findings from a 24-month study on drylands and biodiversity to make a significant contribution to understanding high priority regional policy issues and potential reforms that will favor improved and sustainable biodiversity conservation, while enhancing livelihoods in pastoral areas of the Eastern and Central African region.

The study was conducted by International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Resource Conflict Institute (RECONCILE), and Egerton University as the coordinating institution. The research was supported by Association for the Strengthening of Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA).

Specifically, the research endeavoured to: i) inform policy harmonization in sustainable management of dryland and pastoral areas biodiversity, ii) develop tools that will guide sustainable investment options in dryland and pastoral areas; and iii) promote a regional approach to drylands and pastoral areas conservation and use.

“We need to look for existing opportunities and work with partners like the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) in each country to understand how best we can help implement what they already have in their plans and where we can increase their knowledge and understanding of biodiversity, drylands and livelihoods”, said Dr Michael Waithaka, ASARECA Manager, Policy Analysis and Advocacy Programme.