ILRI Clippings

Jeff Hill, Director of Policy at the Bureau of Food Security, at the United State Agency for International Development (USAID), speaks at a news briefing on ‘Research Options for Mitigating Drought-induced Food Crises,’ 1 Sep 2011 (photo credit: ILRI/Samuel Mungai).

Mark Tran reports in the Guardian‘s Poverty Matters Blog on yesterday’s meeting of experts on the Horn of Africa at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), in Nairobi, Kenya. He says these professionals concluded that underinvestment in livestock-based systems in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya have contributed to the extreme food insecurity in the Horn of Africa.

This meeting was organized by the Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers (CGIAR).

Jeff Hill, director for policy at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), said ”It is not drought, but vulnerability to drought that is eroding food security in these areas . . . and this vulnerability is a result of chronic under-investment. This is particularly true for the livestock-based systems which are and will be a dominant part of the arid and semi-arid lands.”

‘. . . Lloyd Le Page, CEO of the Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centres (Cgiar), agreed on the importance of livestock in the current crisis.

Livestock provides more food security than growing crops in many arid and semi-arid areas,” he told the meeting. “The food crisis in the Horn is essentially a livestock crisis.”. . .

‘The G20 group of leading economies meet later this month in Montpellier, France, to discuss priorities for global food security, following a G20 agriculture summit in Paris in June. . . .

‘The ILRI, based in Nairobi, is a proponent of pastoralism and asserts that herding in dry areas makes better economic sense than irrigation.

‘About 70 million people live in arid lands, and many of them are herders. In Kenya, the pastoral livestock sector is estimated at $800m. The best way to prevent famine in arid lands, argues the institute, is to ensure herders have access to critical dry-season grazing and watering areas. Obstacles to the movement of their herds is the greatest problem for pastoralists, it says.

‘Hill acknowledged government neglect of the interests of pastoralists and said this neglect had to be addressed. “It’s unclear who cares about them,” he said. “There should be a coalition of support, the question of governments is why they should prioritise dry land areas. What we need to do is to build a coalition for pastoralists for a long-term agenda.” . . .

Le Page said ‘Modest investments in agricultural research that allow the world’s most vulnerable people to take charge of their food security are far less expensive than constantly parachuting in food aid and humanitarian assistance.’

Read the whole article at the Guardian‘s Poverty Matters Blog: Investment in pastoralists could help combat east Africa food crisis, 2 Sep 2011.

Read more about the event: http://consortium.cgiar.org/HOA

The CGIAR is a strategic partnership dedicated to advancing science to reduce poverty and hunger, improve human health and nutrition, and enhance ecosystem resilience. Its research is carried out by 15 international agricultural research centers in collaboration with hundreds of partner organizations. www.cgiar.org www.consortium.cgiar.org

Voice of America’s Cathy Majtenyi interviews CGIAR CEO Lloyd Le Page at the CGIAR News Briefing on ‘Research Options for Mitigating Drought-induced Food Crises,’ 1 Sep 2011 (photo credit: ILRI/Susan MacMillan).

Katy Migiro summarizes on Alertnet four ways to prevent famine in the Horn of Africa raised by experts meeting at the opening in Kenya of three days of meetings on the regional food crisis on the Nairobi campus of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). The first meeting is organized by the Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers (CGIAR), followed by a meeting of Africa Union-Interafrican Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR).

‘“Livestock management and farming condition in the Horn are challenging. But let’s be clear: they are not fated to produce famines,” said Lloyd Le Page, CEO of Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), made up of 15 research centres around the world, which is hosting the event. . . .

Among the four top ideas discussed, two focussed on livestock.

‘Invest in livestock and agriculture
‘Experts blame hunger on decades of underinvestment in agriculture.

‘“While drought and conflict are driving the famine in Somalia, drought alone does not explain the extreme levels of food insecurity seen elsewhere in the Horn,” said Jeff Hill, director of policy, the Bureau of Food Security, the United States Agency for International Development.

‘“It is not drought but vulnerability to drought that is eroding food security in these areas and this vulnerability is the result of chronic underinvestment.”

‘This is particularly true for livestock.

‘Livestock accounts for 45 to 50 percent of Kenya’s agricultural gross domestic product, Hill said, yet it has been sorely neglected.

The food crisis in the Horn is essentially a livestock crisis,” said Le Page.

The best way to prevent famine in arid lands is to ensure access to critical dry season grazing and water areas for livestock.”

Pastoralists also need better access to information about drought ahead of time so they can plan, as well as education on appropriate responses and access to markets to sell their herds. . . .

‘Use irrigation to support pastoralism, not switch to farming
‘KARI recently launched a model 100-hectare irrigation scheme on the edge of the Chalbi Desert. One of its major crops is grass.

‘“We tend to replace grazing with crops, which is a major concern,” said [David] Mwangi.

‘“You are right in the middle of an area where livestock is the major livelihood and now you are taking over the better land, the dry season grazing areas, developing an irrigation system there, and replacing pasture.”

‘In the proposed model scheme, the grass is used to feed the home herd, which has been left behind with the women and children while the men and the best animals migrate in search of pasture.

‘This ensures the survival of these vulnerable family members in an area where the rain-fed pasture has been completely exhausted.’

Read the whole article at Alertnet: Four ways to prevent famine in the Horn of Africa—experts, 1 Sep 2011.

The CGIAR Consortium is holding a live interactive panel today on challenges and solutions to the Food Crisis in the Horn of Africa.

The Daily Kos also reports that Chris Funk, who leads a Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS Net), says that FEWS Net gave early warning of the drought-related hunger facing the Horn of Africa this year.

FEWS NET runs a food-price tracking system that showed that the price of maize (corn) in Kitui, Kenya, had soared by 246% in 12 months. And the value of a goat in Bardera, Somalia, usually sold to buy grain, had halved. Satellite measurements of vegetation health tracked the emerging drought in disturbing detail. FEWS NET put out a second alert on 7 June that warned: “This is the most severe food security emergency in the world today, and the current humanitarian response is inadequate.”

‘Emergencies such as the one in East Africa will become more common unless there is a focus on improving agricultural production. . . .

Get involved
‘The CGIAR Consortium’s press conference today, Research Options for Mitigating Drought-induced Food Crises, focuses on solutions and challenges, and is informed by research on such topics as reintroducing traditional dry-land crops; implementing food storage systems; climate change and farming; micro-irrigation and the successful use of plant varieties; and inspiring and engaging youth in sustainable agriculture. . . .

‘The meeting, which takes place at the ILRI [International Livestock Research Institute] campus in Nairobi, will be hosted on the Consortium’s Horn of Africa page, where a live video link and chat channel provide opportunity for Q&A for remote participants. (Times: 10:30–12:00 Nairobi time; 09:30–11:00 CET; 07:30–09:00 GMT; 3:30–5:00 EST; 0:30–2:00 PST). Participants can submit comments or questions ahead of time on the Horn of Africa landing page; during the live event, questions can be submitted in real time via Twitter or the chat channel on the page.

Read the whole article on the Daily Kos Blog: What Went Wrong? LIVE CGIAR Panel To Provide Answers & Solutions, 30 Aug 2011.

A Dinka cattle camp at sunset in Abyei, Sudan; the Sudanese Dinka people migrate north with 5,000 of their cattle from Warrap State to Abyei when floods hit their grazing area (photo on Flickr by UN/Tim McKulka).

Migratory herding is one of the most productive uses of drylands, says the Kenyan newspaper the Daily Nation.

The Nation is reporting on a study conducted by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).

‘Herding in arid and semi-arid areas makes better economic sense than irrigation, a news study says.

‘The report says encouraging the region’s livestock herders to switch to growing crops or to move to cities is unrealistic as drylands would not support crops without extensive irrigation, a practice that is not only scarce but also often impractical.

‘About 70 million people live in arid lands, and many of them are herders. In Kenya, the pastoral livestock sector is estimated at $800 million. . . .

‘The best way to prevent famine in arid lands is to ensure herder access to critical dry-season grazing and watering areas. Pastoralists interviewed for the report said that obstacles to the movement of their herds . . . constituted the largest problem in protecting their animals and livelihoods.

‘A second major problem was a dearth of functioning commercial livestock markets. . . .

‘The study reinforces what others found—that migratory herding is the most productive use of much of this land.’

Read the whole article at the Daily Nation: Pastoralism a step ahead, 30 Aug 2011.