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Targeting Livestock and Fish work on small ruminant value chains in Ethiopia – Emerging ‘best bets’

Debre Zeit workshop participants Last week, Ethiopian partners in the program joined the last of three workshops to take stock of the results of small ruminant value chain assessments in 8 sites. Together, 67 individuals from the sites and other partners joined the workshops. These came from research, academic, NGO, private companies, as well as international research organizations. This is a brief report on the process and outputs of the workshops – all materials from the workshops are accessible online. The objectives of the workshops were: Share and validate results from the rapid VC...

Livestock and Fish program consults Vietnam stakeholders on sites and impact pathways

Participants in the workshop In Vietnam, the ILRI-led Livestock and Fish research program focuses on smallholder pig value chains. As part of the planned activities for 2013, ILRI organized a stakeholder consultation workshop in Hanoi on 22 March 2013 (see wiki for more information). Lucy Lapar and Seth de Vlieger from ILRI’s Hanoi office wrote this report on the meeting. The workshop aimed to identify a short list of priority research sites that fit the characteristics of three target value chain (VC) gradients:  Rural to rural (R2R), rural to peri-urban/urban (R2U), and peri-urban to...

Confronting value chain research tools with field experience in Vietnam

Contributed by Jo Cadilhon On 27-28March 2013, I participated in the first planning workshop of the REVALTER project in Vietnam. REVALTER is the French acronym for Multi-scale assessment of livestock development pathways in Vietnam. The objective of this project is to study the existing conditions of livestock value chains in Vietnam, with a specific focus on pig and dairy chains, so as to create scenarios of future possible developments for the livestock industry of the country. The three-year project outputs are meant to feed directly into the strategic planning of the Vietnamese Institute...

Balancing livestock roles: Key actions to improve livestock systems

This article in the journal Animal reviews the positive and negative roles of livestock in the developing world. Authored by several ILRI staff, the paper also discusses ‘key factors that are likely to determine the future contribution of the sector to food security, environmental protection and economic growth.’ It proposes actions for improving different aspects of livestock systems so that the positive roles outweigh the negatives. The authors argue that ‘recognising the different roles played by livestock in the developing and the developed world is essential to understand the...

Assessing food safety and food nutrition in food chains: A rapid integrated assessment project

‘Aroundfish’ by Paul Klee, 1926 (via WikiPaintings) Putting enough food on the table is a daily challenge faced by households around the world. Ensuring that the food contains enough protein and essential micronutrients is a further consideration, and animal products, such as fish and meat from livestock can go a long way to improving the diets of the world’s poor. In addition, small-scale production of animal source foods can be a pathway out of poverty for many communities. While nutrition is often a priority for the hungry and under-nourished, food safety is also extremely...

Pathways to deliver impact: Working on the Livestock and Fish program’s theory of change

Among the fundamentals of a good research program is the ability to demonstrate how the program will deliver the promise of creating positive change to the target population. Theory of Change defines the pathways through which a program will deliver these promises, highlighting the key assumptions and likely risks the program faces.  The Theory of Change is an important tool for program planning, management, and measuring the program’s progress towards achieving impact on its target population. A 2 days workshop to refine the Livestock and Fish CGIAR Research Program Theory of Change was...

Ethiopia small ruminant value chain assessment: First results assessed

Stakeholder discussions and planning for the Livestock and Fish small ruminant value chain development project began in mid-2012. By November, sites were selected and teams were trained to carry out rapid value chain assessments in the project’s 7 research sites (including for the safe food fair food project). Field implementation of the rapid value chain assessment ran through December 2012 and January 2013 with mixed CGIAR-national teams collecting data in Atsbi, Doyogena, Menz, Horro, Abergelle, Yabello and Shinelle districts (see pictures). VCA assessment with farmersThe teams used...

Adapting dairy market hubs for pro-poor smallholder value chains in Tanzania

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) and other partners in Tanzania are embarking on a 4-year (2013-2016) research-for-development (R4D) project targeted at improving rural based livelihoods through milk. This comes after the 2012, 1-year successful inception phase of a collaborative research project titled, ‘More Milk in Tanzania’ between ILRI and SUA funded by Irish Aid. These resources support the commitment of Irish Aid to the CGIAR change process and more specifically the CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish,...

Dairy Development Forum established to further more inclusive dairy development in Tanzania

Last month, the Tanzania Dairy Board (TDB), Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA), International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Heifer Project International (HPI), SNV – The Netherlands Development Organisation, Land O’Lakes, Inc., and the Tanzania Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries Development (MLDF) organized a national dairy stakeholders’ meeting to present the Dairy Development Forum (DDF). The DDF grew out of the recognition that Tanzania’s dairy development potential can be further harnessed through concerted collaborative partnerships of different players. DDF is...

CGIAR-US university linkages call for proposals – Deadline extended to 29 March 2013

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has provided $107,800 to the CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish to promote linkages with American universities. Researchers in the four CGIAR livestock and fish partner centers – ILRI, ICARDA, CIAT and WorldFish – are invited to submit proposals. Specific objectives for the program are: Bring high-level research expertise from U.S. universities and other partners to CGIAR centers to tackle agricultural research issues of relevance to resource-constrained settings Create new collaborations between CGIAR and U.S....

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