Battle against global poverty making headway–United Nations

Residents of Barack Obama’s families village of Kogelo, Kenya, celebrate his inauguration (photo by Zoriah on Flickr).

The United Nations reports that the war against poverty is progressing well in some places.

‘Some of the world’s poorest countries have made impressive gains in the fight against poverty, but the least developed countries still lag in efforts to improve living standards, the United Nations said today in a report showing significant overall progress towards achieving the global targets against extreme poverty.

‘Giving examples of achievements, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Report – prepared by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) – says that Burundi, Rwanda, Samoa, Sao Tome and Principe, Togo and Tanzania attained or are nearing the goal of universal primary education, one of the targets.

‘Considerable progress has also been made in Benin, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Guinea, Mali, Mozambique and Niger, where net enrolment ratios in primary school increased by more than 25 percentage points from 1999 to 2009.

‘Sub-Saharan Africa, with an 18 percentage point gain in school enrolment between 1999 and 2009, is the region with the best record of improvement, according to the report.

‘Despite significant setbacks caused by the global economic crisis that plunged much of the world into recession in 2008 and 2009, and the high food and energy prices, the world is still on track to achieve the MDGs, according to the report.

‘“Despite these declines, current trends suggest that the momentum of growth in the developing world remains strong enough to sustain the progress needed to reach the global poverty-reduction target,” the report says. “Based on recently updated projections from the World Bank, the overall poverty rate is still expected to fall below 15 per cent by 2015, indicating that the Millennium Development Goal target can be met.”. . .’

Read the full article at UN News Center: UN reports progress towards poverty alleviation, urges increased support for the poorest, 7 July 2011.

 

Reducing hunger and poverty through goat ‘value chains’ in India and Mozambique

In many of the world’s dry areas, goats provide poor people with nutrition and livelihoods. An imGoats Project is working to transform the lives of goat keepers in India and Mozambique by turning their subsistence-level goat production into viable and profitable enterprises.

This two-year (2011–2012) project aims to improve the performance of small ruminant value chains in India and Mozambique so they sustainably increase household incomes and food security and reduce the vulnerability of poor goat keepers, especially women. The project will develop and test models for developing goat value chains using innovation platforms and producer hubs.

Innovation platforms provide spaces for all actors in the goat value chain—from veterinary and other input suppliers to landless producers and small-scale farmers to middlemen buyers to market sellers—to interact to improve the performance of this value chain and the benefits it generates for all the actors along it. Producer hubs allow goat owners to sell their animals collectively, at better prices than they could get individually, and provide the producers with more cost-effective goods and services. The main aim of this project is to empower women and other relatively marginalized groups (e.g., scheduled castes and tribes in India and households caring for HIV/AIDS sufferers and headed by women in Mozambique) while developing goat value chain models that benefit the poor. Lessons learned and opportunities for scaling up and out will be communicated to policymakers and development practitioners.

This project is being conducted in semi-arid areas of India (Udaipur District, Rajasthan, and Dumka District, Jharkhand) and Mozambique (Inhassoro District, Northern Inhambane Province).

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) is responsible for overall project implementation and leading the research. The BAIF Development Research Foundation in India and CARE International in Mozambique will lead the development aspects and local administration in their respective project sites. The project will collaborate with national researchers and other local development partners and will link up with community development projects supported by the International Fund for Agricultural Development in India and Mozambique to share experiences and lessons.

Download a brochure on ILRI’s imGoats Project or visit the project blogsite.
See a presentation by ILRI scientist Ranjitha Puskur on the imGOATS Project: Small ruminant value chains for reducing poverty and increasing food security in dryland areas of India and Mozambique, February 2011.

 

Feeding the world: ‘Let them eat [CGIAR] research’ – Economist

Customers rush to buy bread, a staple in high demand in Mozambique, after it arrives at a bakery in the south of the country as wheat ran short and food prices rose in 2008 (photo credit: ILRI/Mann).

A leader for a special report on feeding the world’s growing population, published in the Economist recently (24 February 2011), recommends targeting the poor with food aid and support, removing agricultural trade barriers to poor countries, cutting agricultural subsidies in rich countries, and, last but not least, investing much more in research conducted by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), to which the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) belongs.

‘Around the world, the food system is in crisis. Prices have rocketed; they are now higher in real terms than at any time since 1984. . . . Food has played some role (how large is hard to tell) in the uprisings in the Middle East. High prices are adding millions to the number who go to bed hungry each night. This is the second price spike in less than four years. Companies are sounding the alarm and the G20 grouping of the world’s largest economies has put “food security” top of its 2011 to-do list. . . .

‘At the moment big structural shifts, such as the growth of China and India, are influencing prices less than one might think. The two Asian giants are demanding more food (and more types of food), but so far their own farmers have largely satisfied that, so they have not needed to trade much (though that would change dramatically if China were to import wheat this year).

‘Over coming decades, though, such fundamental factors will matter more. A good guess is that food production will have to rise by 70% by 2050 to keep pace with population growth, the explosion of developing countries’ megacities and the changes in diet that wealth and urbanisation bring. Big increases will be harder to achieve than in the past because there is little unfarmed land to bring into production, no more water and, in some places, little to be gained by heaping on more fertiliser. Climate change may well exacerbate these problems. For the first time since the 1960s the yields of the world’s most important crops, wheat and rice, are rising more slowly than the global population (see special report). The world cannot feed today’s 7 billion people properly. How on earth can it feed the expected 9 billion in 2050? . . .

‘Let them eat research

‘It can be done. Targeting help to the poorest is part of the solution. . . .

‘As for boosting farm output, it will come as no surprise that this newspaper believes that a big part of the answer is removing trade barriers and cutting subsidies. . . .

‘Although governments can help a lot by getting out of the way in what has been a woefully distorted market, in one respect they need to do more, by reversing the decline in public spending on agricultural research. Unlike other farm subsidies, basic research works. The Green Revolution began with public research. So did Brazil’s recent farming successes. Western countries have not learned the lesson. They have complacently cut back on the work done in universities and international institutions. It was a huge mistake. Basic farm research helps the whole world—and is a bargain. One billion dollars would provide many billions of benefits in terms of people fed and food riots forestalled.

‘Rich countries should therefore properly finance the “CG system” [CGIAR, Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research], a network of government-backed institutes, carrying out research into rice, wheat, maize and livestock. And the emerging giants should chip in, too. China, India, Brazil and Russia complain that they do not get the respect they deserve. Here is a chance for them to earn it by helping underwrite a global public good. They should contribute to the CG system (as Mexico, to its credit, is doing) and make their national research available more widely. Few things matter to human happiness more than the yields of staple crops.’

Read the whole article at the Economist: Crisis prevention: What is causing food prices to soar and what can be done about it, 24 February 2011.

 

Transforming Mozambique’s poultry sector

Speaking at a recent meeting on the ‘Impact of U.S. Support on Farming, Poverty and Stability in Mozambique’, Florencia Cipriano, Head of Veterinary Services in Mozambique, described the country’s poultry sector transformation.

This transformation included the establishment of the Mozambican Aviculture Association (AMA) that “enabled new poultry farmers to form sustainable businesses, helping them understand government procedures and get access to credit.”

“Thanks to the AMA, local poultry workers have increased their market share from one-third to three-fourths in 2010. The association has created 95,000 new jobs, and Mozambique’s poultry sector is now worth $160 million.”

Read more … (One Blog)

Download her remarks

 

Mozambique adapting to climate change with goats

People in the floodplains of Mozambique’s Zambezi Valley have always relied on the rains October and November so they could sow their seeds for a good harvest in the New Year.

But, there are droughts and the rains are erratic, often coming very late and falling so heavily that everything is washed away. Crops fail, leaving people with nothing.

Save the Children’s Flood Plain Management Project, funded by the British Government’s Department for International Development, is helping communities to strengthen and diversify their livelihoods and make them economically sustainable through projects – such as goat-rearing, fish-processing and irrigation – that are aimed at strengthening and diversifying people’s livelihoods.

Read more and watch a video … (DFID)

 

Reality checks for advocates of jatropha and food safety standards for the poor

Estevao Carlos, a pork seller in Morrumbala District, in Zambezia, the most populated province of Mozambique (photo credit: ILRI/Mann).

Two useful reality checks have appeared this week for those of us in the agricultural research for development business.

(1) The first concerns the hardy jatropha tree, widely heralded as a miracle biofuel source.
Miyuki Iiyama, fellow at the World Agroforestry Centre, and James Onchieku, principal research officer at the Kenya Forestry Research Institute, write in SciDev.Net this week (27 October 2010) that ‘while it is possible that jatropha could eventually evolve into a higher yielding oil crop that is productive on marginal lands, and markets could be established for its oil and other useful by-products, it is far too soon to make such promises.

‘The reality is that jatropha is still essentially a semi-wild plant and as such its seed yields, oil quality and oil content are all highly variable. Considerable research is needed into the agronomy of jatropha and crop improvement.

‘The FAO/IFAD [Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations/International Fund for Agricultural Development] report recommends short-term research focused on producing superior clonal plants, with longer-term work on developing improved varieties with reliable trait expression and a seed production system that ensures farmer have access to productive and reliable planting materials.

‘For now, the main potential of jatropha is as part of a strategy to reclaim degraded land, provide a source of locally processed and used oil, and as a hedgerow to control grazing. Until further R&D is conducted — by establishing jatropha trials in various agro-ecological zones, with farmers informed of best practices — significant plantations remain risky and uneconomical. Only “business as usual” should continue.’

Read the whole article at SciDevNet: Reality check for ‘miracle’ biofuel crop, 29 October 2010.

(2) The second reality check concerns what farming practices poor livestock producers should, and can, follow to ensure food safety.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) teamed up to produce a new book called Guide to Good Farming Practices for Animal Production and Food Safety (2010).

Here’s the introduction:
‘Food safety is universally recognised as a public health priority. It requires a holistic approach, from production to consumption.

‘This Guide is intended to help Competent Authorities to assist stakeholders, including farmers, to fully assume their responsibilities at the animal production stage of the food chain to produce safe food. Good farming practices should also address socioeconomic, animal health and environmental issues in a coherent manner.

‘The recommendations in the Guide complement the responsibilities of the Competent Authorities at the farm level, in particular those of the Veterinary Services, and are intended to assist in developing on-farm quality assurance systems for animal product food safety. This document complements existing OIE, FAO and Codex Alimentarius Commission (Codex) texts aimed at addressing animal health and welfare, socioeconomic and environmental issues related to farming practices. The bibliography lists the most relevant documents and publications.

‘To assist the Competent Authorities an indication is given at the end of the Guide on the steps to be taken to implement the recommendations.’

A response
Delia Grace, a veterinary and public health researcher at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), says: ‘This book is a competent compilation of common sense livestock-keeping principles and practices. Well-off, well-educated farmers (mainly in rich countries) are familiar with these and generally follow them (except when it is in their decided self-interest not to).

‘For poor farmers in poor countries, however, the recommendations are to a large extent unworkable. To give just a couple of examples: When a country has millions of poor livestock keepers and only dozens of veterinarians, how can farmers “Establish a working relationship with a veterinarian to ensure that animal health and welfare and disease notification issues are addressed” and  how (and why) should illiterate livestock keepers keep no less than six different sets of records about their farms (page 5)?’

‘Can farming practices be considered “good,”‘ Grace asks, ‘if they provide few direct benefits to those expected to carry them out? What is “good” for the resource-rich livestock owner is often demonstrably not “good”, or even feasible, for the resource-poor livestock keeper. FAO and OIE, two global bodies, have, understandably, recommended global standards that keep our livestock foods safe for human consumption. But these standards can be considered “standard” only by those (relatively few) livestock keepers with the wherewithal to uphold them. Most of the rest of the 1.3 billion people in the world who pursue livestock livelihoods will, also understandably, continue to apply their own, lower, standards of food safety—until such time as their socioeconomic and policy circumstances change, providing them with incentives to invest in higher standards of food safety.’

Find the guide at: Guide to good farming practices for animal production and food safety, FAO and OIE, 2010.

 

Backing smallholder farmers today could avert food crises tomorrow

The Guardian‘s Poverty Matters blog today (14 October 2010) published the following opinion piece by Carlos Seré, director general of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).

‘Agribusiness investment would not only transform the lives of farmers in south Asia and Africa, but boost global food security.

‘As food riots continue in Mozambique and food crises persist in Niger and elsewhere, leaders in global agriculture, food and development are gathering in Des Moines, Iowa this week to highlight the significant role the world’s smallholder farmers could play in alleviating poverty and hunger.

‘
In sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia, most people still live in rural areas, where they farm crops and livestock or derive other livelihoods from agriculture. With few other ways to feed their families or make a living, billions of rural people will continue to cultivate lands and raise farm animals.
 
These smallholder farmers form the backbone of global food production. Despite climate change, pests, diseases, water scarcity, and myriad other challenges, small family farms produce more than half of the world’s food. Most of the food staples consumed in the developing world come from small ‘mixed’ farms, which make efficient use of the resources at their disposal by combining crop and animal production.

‘Smallholders also represent an emerging market opportunity for local and international agribusiness alike. Because opportunity costs for their land and labour are relatively low, these farmers are competitive food producers. Their mixed crop-and-livestock farming systems can compete effectively against large scale commercial operations.

‘
Smart investments by agribusiness could help millions of these smallholders in south Asia and Africa. By helping them to become even more efficient and improving their links to other markets, agribusiness could enable them to make the transition from subsistence farming to remunerative enterprise. Agribusiness can help farmers gain better access to improved seeds, knowledge, and other agricultural inputs, and link smallholders to local and international private sector enterprises, reducing transaction costs and risks as well as adding value to their agricultural products. Farmers would see a sustainable boost in production and income, while agribusinesses would gain new access to billions of potential buyers.

‘
The award of the World Food Prize this week to Heifer International, a livestock oriented non-governmental organisation, should help promote smallholder livestock production, in particular, as a vital pathway out of poverty and hunger.
 
Farm animals kept on the world’s small farms serve as the building blocks of prosperity. With global human population rising (it is expected to increase by 2 to 3 billion people over the next four decades, after which it should begin to decline), livestock are becoming agriculture’s most economically important sub sector, with demand in developing countries for milk, meat and eggs projected to double over the next 20 years alone.

‘
A wealth of innovative business opportunities exists for companies to invest in livestock-related enterprises by providing infrastructure, credit, feed, vaccines, or milk cooling systems. Smart investments targeting the developing world’s billions of livestock keepers could greatly increase global food security, as well as generate profits for both livestock producers and agribusinesses.

‘Small-scale livestock enterprises drive dairy production in eastern Africa and south Asia. India is now the largest dairy producer in the world, with most of the country’s milk produced by small farmers. More than 80% of the milk output in Kenya is produced not by large milk companies, but rather by approximately 800,000 small scale dairy farmers. It is sold to customers by some 350,000 small scale milk vendors.

‘
The potential of livestock and the ongoing ‘livestock revolution’ to better the lives of poor farmers in developing countries drives the scientific agenda of the Africa-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). We see the great opportunities livestock offer the poor. Every day, we see how much difference the meat, milk, muscle, manure and money supplied by a cow, goat, pig, camel or other domesticated animal makes to people struggling to produce enough food and income for their families. We see also how much the loss of farm animals – through disease, drought or other disaster – devastates such households.

‘With the help of agribusiness expertise and increased public investment, we think the world’s smallholder farmers could become a major force in global food security, helping to sustain increasing levels of world food production over the long term.

‘Carlos Seré is the director general of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).’

Read this opinion piece by ILRI director general Carlos Seré on the Guardian‘s ‘Poverty Matters’ blog: Backing smallholder farmers today could avert food crises tomorrow

 

MDG Goals Summit says women and girls are ‘the answer to global development’

Widowed farmer Maria Ngove feeds a goat at her home in Lhate Village, in Gurue District, Zambezia Province, in Mozambique (photo ILRI/Mann).

The UN Wire reports on 30 September 2010 the following among take-away messages from last week’s UN Millennium Development Goals Review Summit, the Clinton Global Initiative and the UN Week Digital Media Lounge:

> ‘Women and girls are the answer to global development

> ‘The smallest solutions–e.g., bednets, clean cookstoves and vaccines–will make the largest difference

> ‘We each have a role to play through our resources, skills and networks to achieve the MDGs

> ‘More than ever, technology is a key player in achieving global problems. . . .’

Michael Keating, of the Africa Progress Panel, says:

> ‘Expectations around the MDG Summit were low, given global economic and financial woes. In terms of commitments announced, including to and by Africa, they were met. The question now is how ‘hard’ the commitments are, whether they are new or ‘recycled’, whether they will be implemented, and who will hold those making them to account.

> ‘Most significant was President Obama’s speech on the MDGs: not much to measure, but he made a compelling case for development as a strategic, economic and moral imperative for the US – and the world. He emphasized the need for smarter partnerships including with the private sector, and mutual accountability, especially between rich and developing countries.

> ‘Leaders in the public and private sectors, in both donor and developing countries made measurable pledges, notably at meetings convened by the S-G on women and children’s health and on bridging the malaria gap. These related to funding levels, health spending, coverage, and training targets. . . .’

Sign up to receive the UN Wire or the Africa Progress Panel email news.

 

Getting wildlife and livestock value-added benefits: Part 2 of interview of veterinarian Steve Osofsky

. . . If we don’t recognize the importance of both livestock and wildlife, southern Africa is going to lose out.

The following excerpts are taken from the second part of a two-part interview with Steve Osofsky, Director of Wildlife Health Policy for the Wildlife Conservation Society.

‘In Botswana, if you want to export beef right now you have to have this physical separation of cattle and wildlife. But in order to produce beef that is free of foot and mouth disease, there are other ways through which it appears that that can be done safely. And this involves what we call commodity based trade—which exists in other parts of the world. And what we are really talking about is managing the risk of foot and mouth disease in a different way. Instead of necessarily requiring all of this separation of wildlife and livestock—you process the beef, you debone it, you take out the lymph nodes— which is usually done to produce high quality steaks, anyway— and you age the beef (which changes the pH and kills the foot and mouth disease virus if it were there)–which is also done to produce high quality beef. And those processes alone, the removing of bone and lymph nodes, the aging of beef which changes the ph of the meat, make the chances of foot and mouth being present, even if an animal actually had it, virtually nil. And cattle are still quarantined for sufficient time so as to ensure they are free from foot and mouth and otherwise healthy before slaughter. So what we need to do is to continue to evaluate and document this approach with good science and to partner with agro-industry, so that we can produce beef in this value-added way so that the world market will view it as a safe product. We do this all the time in other parts of the world, but the southern Africans have really been held to a higher standard in a lot of ways.

‘But another benefit to this processing is that the producer country is actually exporting a higher-value product. So that per unit of production, per animal, the amount of revenue that stays in the country and then goes back to the farmer is significantly higher than if you are exporting a relatively unprocessed product to Europe and having the Europeans get all the value-added benefit. So this has got important implications for developing countries—many of the market countries for foreign beef from Africa are providing a tremendous amount of aid to African countries in terms of development assistance. But if we really want these countries to stand up on their own two feet without an ongoing cycle of aid dependence, this is the type of “out of the box” (or “out of the fence”) thinking we need to be looking at. If these countries can increase their incomes by producing a product that brings in more revenue per unit of production- fantastic. That’s why we are interested in some of these more modern approaches to risk management and why the international community is gradually coming along. It’s really going to take good science and robust pilot work and countries willing to explore this both on the exporter side, as well as on the importer side, so that these trade restrictions that are currently in place can be gradually lifted- and enable these new opportunities. Finally, keep in mind that the rural poor who currently live closest to wildlife currently have no access to wider markets- so the market-based ideas we’ve been discussing have the potential to help the very stakeholders who are in fact the primary targets of most development assistance.

‘It seems clear this has got to be driven by economics, and by public-private partnerships. We are going to need the private sector, in all likelihood, running many of the laboratories and meat processing facilities, but it has to be a partnership with government because ultimately government is accountable. So the enabling legislation has to be in place and the policies have to be right, and again, not just on the producer side, but we also have to see a willingness on the importer side—largely developed nations, particularly the Europeans but potentially, eventually, the United States, in terms of recognizing the validity of this approach as it can be demonstrated over time. The other thing is that by producing higher value products, there is also a very important set of regional markets. This doesn’t all relate to markets overseas. In many of these countries there is a growing middle class and there is an opportunity to produce value-added products for regional consumption. And there is also the Asian market. So there are a lot of opportunities, and accessing them will depend on the types of solid partnerships between industry and government that drive many such transitions.’

Read the whole interview at Worldwatch: Making room for wildlife to improve livelihoods, September 2010.

In the first part of the interview, Osofsky explains how small-scale farmers can benefit from the conservation of wildlife. To read the first part of this interview see: Finding common ground to improve livelihoods and conserve wildlife.’

Read the whole article and interview by Laurel Neme at Mongabay: The role of wildlife conservation in human health, 7 September 2010.

 

Veterinarian Steve Osofsky on smart ways of tackling wildlife, livestock and human health in tandem

Photo credit: ILRI / Mann

Steve Osofsky, wildlife veterinarian and Director of Wildlife Health Policy at the international Wildlife Conservation Society, spoke with Laurel Neme on her ‘The WildLife’ radio show and podcast about the intersection between wildlife, livestock and human health, and how paying attention to all three in tandem leads to better outcomes for all.

Here are some excerpts from the article.
‘Nature-based tourism, such as photographic safaris and trophy hunting, now contributes about as much to the economies of southern African countries as agriculture, forestry, and fisheries combined—a remarkable and relatively recent development documented by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. . . .

‘Livestock farming is an important traditional way for communities in sub-Saharan Africa to build and maintain wealth, as well as attain food security. Essentially, the TFCA [transfrontier conservation areas] concept and current internationally accepted approaches to the management of transboundary animal diseases (TADs) are largely incompatible. The TFCA concept promotes free movement of wildlife over large geographic areas, whereas the present approach to the control of TADs (especially for directly transmitted infections) is to use vast fences to prevent movement of susceptible animals between areas where TADs occur and areas where they do not, and to similarly restrict trade in commodities derived from animals on the same basis. In short, the incompatibility between current regulatory approaches for the control of diseases of agro-economic importance and the vision of vast conservation landscapes without major fences needs to be reconciled in the interest of regional risk-diversification of land-use options and livelihood opportunities. An integrated, interdisciplinary approach offers the most promising way to address these issues—one where the well-being of wildlife and ecosystems, domestic animals, and Africa’s people are assessed holistically, with a “One World – One Health” perspective.’

And here are some excerpts from the interview of Steve Osofsky.
‘The health of domestic animals relates directly to the health and livelihoods of farmers anywhere in the world—and certainly in places where there’s an intense interaction between free ranging wildlife and livestock, and competition for resources like grazing and water, which is less of an issue in the eastern United States then it is in southern Africa, the relationship between wildlife populations and livestock populations is an intimate one. So, understanding that and not only looking at basic transmission of infectious diseases but also at resource competition and how it relates to land use, is very important. And again, looking at livelihoods. Looking at how people can benefit not just from agriculture but from wildlife is very important. I tell students that my job in many ways is to help make wildlife an economically rational and a socio-culturally acceptable land use choice. Because if that’s not the case, then wildlife isn’t going to survive. It’s a luxury for us in the developed world to want wildlife nearby or in a national park that we can visit. If you’re still struggling to feed your family, conservation and aesthetic appreciation of nature are not necessarily that common. So a lot of our work is about finding ways to make wildlife a sensible land use, and because of things like tourism and things like hunting, that’s possible in many places. . . . Wildlife, as a land use, can generate more per unit hectare in some of these areas than any other form of economic activity. . . .

‘We were all trained in our different disciplines. If you learned about agriculture, for example, that’s naturally the lens you probably view the world through. Now in what we call sort of a “One World – One Health” approach, we really are pushing sectors to work together because real world problems aren’t neatly compartmentalized. They’re messy and they’re linked together, and that’s really what we’re trying to deal with in the AHEAD program [Animal and Human Health for the Environment and Development]. Looking at these transfrontier areas we found a receptive audience, because these countries recognize that they need some assistance on this. A lot of them have good capacity, but they could always use a boost both in terms of thinking about these issues cross-sectorally and in terms of resources to actually solve the problems. . . . We [AHEAD] are largely a facilitator. We are a convener. Within countries and across countries, we’ve literally helped get folks from the Ministries of Agriculture, Ministries of Wildlife and Ministries of Health together at the same table to look at these issues and agree that they all have a stake. That wasn’t happening. . . .

‘We’re living in a very challenging time. We look at things like climate change. Just like you want to have a diversified investment portfolio, you want to have a diversified economic or livelihood portfolio. For example, as most current climate models indicate, parts of southern Africa will likely get much, much drier- wildlife often does much better at those times. People can still come and see wildlife at times of drought; wildlife evolved in this region. When the rains are good and livestock is incredibly productive, that’s great too. To have your eggs in multiple baskets so that peoples’ livelihoods can benefit from both natural resources, like wildlife, as well as livestock, that’s a win-win. And that’s what we’re very interested in facilitating. . . .

‘I see the animal health issues as make or break, which is why we’ve created AHEAD and are investing in it. Because even if you get everything else right – certainly in the southern Africa context – if you don’t deal with this conflict between export agriculture and the current regulations that require physical separation of wildlife and livestock by fencing, if you don’t deal with that, then you won’t have true TFCAs- you won’t have a peace park. So, the good news is, since those fences were put up in the late 1950′s and 1960′s and since, we have learned a lot more about diseases like foot and mouth and ways to create, as I was saying earlier, safe beef products, so that importing countries can be assured that the product they’re importing won’t bring foot and mouth disease into their country. Those methods exist, and now it’s a matter of helping people understand what they are and creating some pilot projects—very incrementally and cautiously looking at new models to prove that they work. You need science-based proof of concept so that eventually policy change can be adopted and some of these win-win opportunities can really be implemented.

‘With the bird flu it was really clear that we hadn’t had a good “One Health” model in place. In places like Indonesia, we were discovering bird flu when people were dying. We should be finding bird flu when it’s still in chickens. But because the veterinary infrastructure in that case was so weak, it wasn’t picked up. If we were getting it right, we’d be detecting these issues in their points of origin, much earlier on (“upstream”) in the process. And, ideally over time, as we’re educating ourselves, we’ll be making investments to prevent these things. We’ll be thinking much more proactively about deforestation and changing where we put up dams, because those types of land use changes are often what precipitate changes in ecology that lead to emerging diseases—whether it’s the resurgence of malaria we see around logging areas in the Amazon, areas that are often being cleared in order to produce more land for livestock grazing, or something else.

‘The relationship between those types of land use changes and huge public health costs are very real. We’re still not very good at recognizing that ahead of time, and we’re often looking at short-term profits as opposed to long-term costs. We need to get past that. The whole “One World – One Health” approach is about thinking about this stuff more proactively. Using good science but not waiting until the outbreak—trying to be more contemplative in the land-use decisions that we make and their likely outcomes. . . .

‘. . . Everybody wants to be healthy, and everyone who depends on livestock, which is much of the developing world, wants their livestock to be healthy. So it gives us an entry point to have people see the relevance of [the linkages between public health, agriculture, and conservation]. . . .

‘The [One World-One Health] idea is a very old one – the idea of a relationship between veterinary medicine and human health and environmental stewardship. That’s not new. What’s new is actually applying it now in the complex world we live in. We’re seeing a lot of parties do that now, as I said, across the UN system, for example, in various countries. I think you’re only going to continue to see more and more of that . . . .’

Read the whole article and interview by Laurel Neme at Mongabay: The role of wildlife conservation in human health, 7 September 2010.