Could Rift Valley fever be a weapon of mass destruction? An insidious insect-animal-people infection loop explored

The Fifth Plague: Livestock Disease, woodcut by Gustave Doré, 1866 (public domain, via Wikimedia Commons).

Anthrax, bird flu , Ebola, HIV-AIDS, H1N1, H5N1, influenza, Rift Valley fever, SARS: What are the disease links between people, animals and environments? And what are we doing to protect ourselves against the next outbreak of a deadly infectious disease? A series being published in the Huffington Post is exploring such ‘living weapons’ and our preparedness, or lack thereof, in dealing with them. Keeping an eye on livestock diseases, experts agree, is a major way to prevent deadly outbreaks of human diseases. And these animal-human disease links, they say, are under-appreciated and under-funded.

Take Rift Valley fever, a disease transmitted between mosquitoes, livestock and people in Africa. Although considered by many experts to be a potential bioterrorist weapon, it remains underfunded.

As Lynne Peeples of the Huffington Post reports:

This emphasis on coordination among medical, veterinary and environmental health scientists, reflecting the global “One Health” movement, could also be employed in the development of vaccines and treatments for bioterror threats.

Rift Valley fever virus is a prime candidate for such collaboration, says BioProtection Systems’ [Ramond] Flick, an expert on emerging infectious disease, which can afflict both animals and humans. Creating a livestock vaccine would reduce the risk of human infection.

However, because the disease is not considered a priority human bioterrorism agent by the government, research funding is low. Jason McDonald, a CDC spokesperson, explains the agency’s exclusion of Rift Valley: humans typically contract the virus through bites of infected mosquitoes and just 1 percent of these victims die.

Flick disagrees.

The public’s current awareness of Rift Valley fever and its perception of the West Nile virus threat before 1999 are strikingly similar, he says. West Nile had not been given much thought before it cropped up in New York City. Within a few years it had spread across the country.

Flick warns of even more devastating consequences with the relatively unknown bug. More mosquito species can carry Rift Valley than West Nile. It is also more virulent. And according to research in Arabia and Africa, the fatality rate may actually be increasing, killing more than 30 percent of people infected during recent outbreaks. Further, there does appear to be potential for human-to-human transmission.’

Scientists at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) have been working with partner organizations in eastern and southern Africa to better understand the spread of Rift Valley fever. They are developing a toolkit that will help decision-makers make timely and appropriate interventions to prevent the disease from jumping from cattle to the poor people who rear them. The toolkit includes advice on the conditions that suit the Rift Valley fever virus infecting cattle populations (e.g., following unusually heavy rains northern Kenya and other parts of the Horn’s drylands), at which point disease control agents should begin surveillance to diagnose and stop the spread disease in the infected animals before it has time to begin infecting human populations.

Efforts to better align the work of organizations researching Rift Valley fever were the focus this month (Feb 2012) of a workshop organized and hosted by ILRI at its Nairobi headquarters. Watch for a forthcoming post on the ILRI New Blog on that workshop and what it achieved.

The urgency of adopting a ‘one health’ approach to disease control is highlighted by the Huffington Post‘s Lynne Peeples.

‘. . . Biological weapons have a long and sordid history, from catapulting infected corpses to dropping bombs of plague-infected fleas. But what if a biological weapon were being developed and studied by scientists that had the potential to kill not a battalion or a city, but 150 million people? According to some public health and defense officials, that is exactly what we’re facing, following the cultivation of a highly contagious form of H5N1—a lethal bug better known as bird flu. The contagion, they fear, could escape the lab or its recipe could land in the wrong hands.

. . . A super flu is just one of a growing list of potential pandemics that could develop in the near future, either as a result of terrorism, of superbugs leaping from animals to humans, or both. In fact, nearly 80 percent of the bioterrorism agents recognized by the U.S. government started in animals. . . . And nature will spawn new agents continuously.’

‘This means a terrorist may need few tools, little training, minimal money and no published blueprint to harvest a superbug and then unleash it in food, water, air or via insect vectors such as fleas or mosquitos. . . .

The overlap of bioterrorism agents and emerging infectious disease also means that officials could defend against biological attacks and natural outbreaks in tandem.’

‘. . . Yet federal funding to prevent and respond to bioterrorism is plummeting. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s biodefense budget peaked in 2005 at about $1.2 billion. The 2012 budget is down to $800 million, with state and local programs—the country’s first line of defense—absorbing some of the most significant cuts. . . . The U.S. “remains largely unprepared for a large-scale bioterrorism attack or deadly disease outbreak.”

. . . Meanwhile, nature knows no rules or regulations and continues to create new viruses and alter old ones. And because animal-borne diseases may need no help spilling over into humans, outbreak investigations could easily confuse intentional and natural outbreaks.

“The government spends a lot of money developing biosensors,” says Princeton’s Kahn, referring to air sampling surveillance and other sophisticated systems. “But I would argue the best ones are flying around,” or in this case, hanging out on farms.

Zoos can be particularly good sources of sentinels, she adds, as they house a wide array of animals from around the world with different levels of susceptibility. Most zoos are also located near densely populated urban centers, which tend to be terrorism “hot spots.”

“There’s a possibility that the high-tech tools are not even in the right place,” says Rabinowitz. “By being constantly aware of new events in animals as well as in humans and the environment, we’re more likely to pick up a new threat.”. . .

This emphasis on coordination among medical, veterinary and environmental health scientists, reflecting the global “One Health” movement, could also be employed in the development of vaccines and treatments for bioterror threats. . . .

Researchers have discovered an average of 15 to 20 previously unknown diseases in each of the past few decades, including incurable diseases like HIV/AIDS, ebola and SARS, with new pathogens likely to emerge and spread faster due to the global population’s increasing size and mobility.’

‘. . . The ability to detect and identify diseases as they initially emerge can go a long way in thwarting an outbreak, [Scott Lillibridge] says. It can provide the time to prepare, including upgrading quarantines at the border, researching a vaccine and identifying what drugs might successfully combat the infection.

‘”A couple weeks can be critical,” says Lillibridge. “It can make an administration look foolish or like they’re in control.”

‘Overall, the U.S. government spent approximately $60 billion on biodefense from 2001 to 2009. Only 2 percent of that was dedicated to preventive measures such as programs to discover and reduce biological threats overseas, according to Koblentz.

To protect Americans, we must look at what is going on in the rest of the world,” says Khan.

ANSER’s Gursky, recently returned from hosting a NATO meeting in Central Europe: “The most important strategy is to build up the capabilities that we share, which means reaching across borders and politics,” she says.’

‘Coalescing efforts might also allow the government to do more with less. “We’re looking at not only man being a terrorist, but nature can be a terrorist as well,” says Henderson. “The natural occurrence of a disease gives us similar problems, so whatever we’re doing to prepare for one, prepares us for the other.”‘

Read the whole article, by Lynne Peeples, in the Huffington Post: Bioterrorism funding withers as death germs thrive in labs, nature, 10 Feb 2012; this article is part of a series, ‘The Infection Loop,’ investigating the complex links between human, animal and environment.

Read more on ILRI’s News Blog and Clippings Blog about recent research advances in better control of Rift Valley fever.

 

Multi-stakeholder innovation in Africa: Dairy and beef cases feature in new report from FARA

The Forum on Agricultural Research in Africa just published a new report on agricultural innovation in sub-Saharan Africa: experiences from multiple-stakeholder approaches.

The report draws together case experiences across Africa with an ‘integrated agriculture research for development (IAR4D) approach’ that brings together multiple actors along a commodity value chain to address challenges and identify opportunities to generate innovation.

Included in the cases are assessments of dairy development in Kenya and Uganda as well as the beef sector in Botswana.

On Kenya, the report observes: ‘The development of a successful smallholder industry requires two complimentary elements. Firstly, increased productivity requires improved livestock breeds, strong disease control and veterinary services and improved quality and quantity of feeds. Given the need to encourage many smallholder dairy producers, delivery of support services remains dependent on local institutions and their development. Secondly, expanding market institutions with facilities for milk bulking and collection, and group organisational structures are essential and can be most effectively supplied by the private sector. Although formal licensed markets based on processed milk products are important, informal markets selling raw milk, informal dairy products with low-cost processing remain an essential component of a successful dairy industry.’

On Uganda, the report observes: ‘A key lesson is the need for ongoing discussions and coordination efforts by stakeholders along the value chain. This includes smallholder farmers and traders, development agencies, and policymakers. Although the dairy industry and its supporting services were liberalised, there is a need to coordinate business development services, involving farmer organisations, while avoiding direct subsidies that are known to stifle markets.’

On Botswana, the report observes: ‘Understanding the role the private sector plays in facilitating change at local, regional, and national government levels is important when considering changes to the enabling environment for value chains. It is essential that the private sector is able to speak with an informed and unified voice and is able to engage with Government.’

Overall:

The case studies demonstrated that successful innovation is dependent on a wide range of factors and interventions, the most important being the existence or creation of a network of research, training and development stakeholder groups drawn from public, private and NGO sectors.

Download the report …

 

ILRI in southern Africa–More efforts needed to address vulnerability and climate change

For the November 2011 ‘liveSTOCK Exchange’ event at ILRI, Sikhalazo Dube, from South Africa’s Agricultural Research Council (ARC), reflects on ILRI’s work in southern Africa …

Livestock research and development practitioners in the region welcomed the opening up of ILRI’s regional office in southern Africa five years ago. ILRI identified two areas as possible entry points: a) enhancing the market participation of smallholder farmers, and b) reducing the vulnerability and increasing the resilience of communities who derive the bulk of their livelihoods from livestock.

Since then, ILRI has made progress with the theme on enhancing market opportunities, as is shown by ongoing work on value chain analysis and innovations systems approaches with a focus on cattle and goats in selected countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). However, there is still a visible gap on the reducing vulnerability theme. This is one area that ILRI still needs to do more in this region.

This region has been identified as one of the hotspots for climate change with most model projections to 2050 indicating a largely dry region. There is no doubt that management of feeding resources for livestock, including water, will become an area where we need innovations focused on mitigation and adaptation to climate change.

As we look to the future, we need to address the role of livestock, particularly small stock, in the livelihoods of poor farmers. History will judge us by our ability to feed vulnerable members of society in a climate-challenged world. There is opportunity for ILRI to strengthen its collaboration with existing partners and create new ones in order to meaningfully contribute to this agenda.

We look forward to continued engagement with ILRI in advancing the livestock agenda for sustainable natural resources in the face of global climate change. As an ILRI champion in this region, I am grateful to have worked under the guidance of former ILRI director general Carlos Seré and have no doubt that ILRI and the partners benefited from his great leadership. I had the pleasure of meeting Carlos and listening and reading his work. His passion was evident and inspirational.

I wish Carlos well in his new endeavors and look forward to working with ILRI’s new director general, Jimmy Smith.

Agriculture remains the cornerstone of the society we live in and together we can do more!

Contributed by Sikhalazo Dube, senior scientist, rangeland ecology and management, with the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) of South Africa and ILRI ‘champion’ in the region.

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On 9 and 10 November 2011, the ILRI Board of Trustees hosted a 2-day ‘liveSTOCK Exchange’ to discuss and reflect on livestock research for development. The event synthesized sector and ILRI learning and helped frame future livestock research for development directions.

The liveSTOCK Exchange also marked the leadership and contributions of Dr. Carlos Seré as ILRI Director General. See all posts in this series / Sign up for email alerts

 

Animal health and emerging diseases a focus for CIRAD in East and Southern Africa

The Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement (CIRAD) is a French research center working with developing countries to tackle international agricultural and development issues.

It’s recently updated site on it work in East and Southern Africa introduces CIRAD’s activities in the region. ‘Animal health and emerging diseases’ is one of the focus areas and includes the following projects:

• Risk analysis in swine fever transmission (ASFRISK)
• A regional network on Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD)
• Ecology and epidemiology of avian influenza (H1N1) in Southern countries (GRIPAVI)
• Ngamiland Interface Disease Investigation (NIDI)
• Effect of increased aridity and drought frequency on socio-écological systems in the savanna (SAVARID)
• Improving swine fever control in Maurice (TCP)
• Vaccines for the Control of Neglected Animal Diseases in Africa (VACNADA)

Visit the web site

 

Coping with weather variability–urgent in Africa whether or not it is due to climate change

The worst drought in 60 or so years is biting deeper into countries in the Horn of Africa; artists from around the world painted canvases illustrating the human impact of climate change in their countries; 16 of these canvases were being exhibited at the UN Climate Negotiations in Poznan, Poland, in Dec 2008 (image credit: Piotr Fajfer / Oxfam International).

‘As parts of the Horn of Africa experience their driest periods in 60 years, pushing the numbers needing aid to beyond 10 million, some have been quick to blame climate change.

‘But no single event can be attributed to climate change, which involves long-term (decades or longer) trends in climate variability. There is, however, consensus in attributing the drought to the particularly strong La Niña event. The impact of climate change on the intensity and frequency of La Niña and El Niño in future is a big unknown.

‘IRIN spoke to two experts, an environmentalist and a scientist, who have worked extensively in the region:

‘Philip Thornton, a senior scientist who works part-time with the Nairobi-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the University of Edinburgh-based Institute of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, has done some pioneering work on projections of climate-change impact in eastern and southern Africa.

‘He told IRIN via email that projections of the climate-change impact in East Africa were “a problem” as the authoritative Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report “indicated that there was good consensus among the climate models that rainfall was likely to increase during the current century.

‘”But work by other climate scientists since then suggests that … certain Indian Ocean effects in East Africa may not actually occur.

‘”Some people think that East Africa is drying, and has dried over recent years; currently there is no hard, general evidence of this, and it is very difficult as yet to see where the statistical trends of rainfall in the region are heading, but these will of course become apparent in time.”

‘The IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report will be released in 2014.

‘Jan de Leeuw is the operating project leader in the vulnerability and sustainability in pastoral and agro-pastoral systems within ILRI’s People, Livestock and Environment theme. He points out that this La Niña event is one of the strongest since the 1970s. But he says La Niña, along with El Niño, appear in cycles that “we don’t understand”. . . .

‘De Leeuw writes: “La Niña events were common from 1950 till 1976. Since then we had two decades [until about 1996] with fewer events of lesser depth. This has changed since then and over the last 15 years or so we have had more frequent La Niña events.”

‘Events as deep as the current La Niña occur once in 20 or 30 years, writes De Leeuw. “We are in a period now of more frequent La Niña events, but such a situation was there from 1950 till 1976 also.”

‘Thornton has the last word when he says research attention must focus on developing effective early warning systems and ways to help people affected by these events, who have no use for “academic” consideration of the linkages with climate change to cope better with the current levels of weather variability, “whatever happens in the future”.

Read the whole article at IRIN: Too soon to blame climate change for drought, 12 Jul 2011.

 

Wildlife populations reported to be crashing in Africa’s renowned Mara and Okavango wildlife refuges

The African Cape buffalo (photo credit: ILRI/Elsworth).

Is conservation of wild mammals and their environments in Africa at a crisis point? Are wildlife populations “crashing” in Africa’s most renowned wildlife reserves? Two new reports suggest that may be the case. The following was reported in the Guardian today.

‘The Okavango delta in Botswana has suffered “catastrophic” species loss over the past 15 years, researchers have announced , in the latest sign of a growing crisis for wildlife in Africa.

‘Some wild animal populations in the delta, one of the wonders of the natural world, have shrunk by up to 90% and are facing local extinction, according to the most comprehensive aerial survey yet undertaken there.

‘The findings come after a study this month showed dramatic declines in animal numbers in the Masai Mara wildlife reserve, south-west Kenya, raising anxiety about the effectiveness of conservation across the continent. . . .

‘”The results were unexpected,” said Mike Chase, founder of Elephants without Borders, which did the aerial survey of the region. “There has been a cosy pretence that wildlife is thriving and doing well in the Okavango delta. Our survey provides the first scientific evidence that wildlife is declining, and pretty sharply too. That cosy pretence has been blown out of the water.”

‘He added: “It is still one of Africa’s great wildlife destinations, but doing nothing will jeopardise that reputation.”

‘Chase’s study found that 11 species have declined by 61% since a 1996 survey in Ngamiland district, the location of the delta. Ostrich numbers were worst hit; there was a 95% drop, from 11,893 animals to 497 last year. Some 90% of wildebeest were also wiped out, along with 84% of the population of the antelope tsessebe, 81% of warthogs and kudus, and nearly two-thirds of giraffes.

‘”The decline of wildebeest has been catastrophic. The numbers have fallen below the minimum of 500 breeding pairs to be sustainable. They are on the verge of local extinction. These are grim statistics. You would have expected to see serious decline since the 70s in somewhere like Kenya, but our trend analysis only goes back to the 90s. To have seen decline on our watch is totally unacceptable,” Chase said.

Chase suggested a drought in the 1980s and 1990s, plus bushfire, habitat encroachment and poaching, as the main reasons for the nosedive. “The causes are multiple and complex, but drought is the over-arching one.”. . .

‘The study was funded by Botswana’s government and Chase was due to present his findings to ministers and scientists on Friday. . . .

‘One politically sensitive topic is the fencing to separate wildlife from farmers’ livestock. Joseph Okori, a local wildlife expert, said: “We did see a great impact from fences on species like springbok, kudu and zebra. When drought comes these fences blocked them from normal migration patterns and access to water.”

‘The Okavango delta is not the only tourist destination in Africa to face a loss of natural bounty. Researchers found that in the Masai Mara, numbers of impala, warthog, giraffe, topi and Coke’s hartebeest had declined by more than 70% over three decades.

‘Scientists at Hohenheim University in Germany, and the International Livestock Research Institute [ILRI] in Nairobi, said wildebeest had again been badly hit: their celebrated migration now involved 64% fewer animals than it did in the early 1980s. Zebra numbers inside the reserve had fallen by three-quarters.

‘Joseph Ogutu, a senior statistician in the bioinformatics unit at Hohenheim University [and formerly a scientist at ILRI, where he did this research], said: “There is a crisis. And what we’re seeing in the Mara is not specific to that region.” The conflict between wildlife and farming livestock was seen as significant here too. Ogutu told of a 1,100% increase in cattle grazing in the reserve, along with poaching and changing land-use patterns – the primary causes of the Mara’s downward trend in wildlife populations.

‘Conservationists believe there are lessons to be learned from both trouble spots. “One of the big problems in both the Mara and the Okavango delta is that we are not looking at how the land around them is managed,” said Drew McVey, species programme officer at WWF-UK. “It’s very important that we have a more holistic approach to conservation and development and don’t seen these as isolated islands. We need to think of them as full ecosystems.”. . .’

Read the whole article in today’s Guardian: Drought and poachers take Botswana’s natural wonder to brink of catastrophe, 18 June 2011.

Read more about ILRI’s recent comprehensive study in Kenya’s Masai Mara on the ILRI News Blog: Numbers of wildlife in Kenya’s famous Mara region have declined by two-thirds or more over last 33 years, 1 June 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.

 

ILRI mass-produced vaccine to protect livestock of poor herders against cancer-like disease

Field trials of a new vaccine batch for East Coast fever produced at the Nairobi-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) are nearing completion; a Maasai woman from northern Tanzania holds her calf that has just been immunized against East Coast fever (picture credit: ILRI/Mann).

‘Thousands of pastoralists could be saved from destitution thanks to a much-needed vaccine that is being mass-produced to protect cattle against a deadly parasite.

‘Field trials of a new vaccine batch for East Coast fever produced at the Nairobi-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) are nearing completion.

‘The first bulk batch of the vaccine, produced by ILRI 15 years ago, has protected one million animals, improving the living standards of livestock keepers.

‘East Coast fever is a tick-transmitted disease that kills thousands of cows every year in Africa.

‘Calves are particularly susceptible to the disease. In herds kept by the pastoral Maasai people, for example, the disease kills from 20 to 50 per cent of all unvaccinated calves.

‘An experimental vaccine against the fever was first developed more than 30 years ago. This has been followed by further testing with major funding from the UK Department for International Development (DfID) and to facilitate the mass production of the vaccine. East Coast Fever puts the lives of more than 25 million cattle at risk. In 11 African countries, the disease is now endemic and endangers a further 10 million animals in new regions such as Southern Sudan, where the disease has been spreading fast. The vaccine could save the 11 affected countries at least £175 million (Sh23.9 Billion) a year.

‘The immunisation procedure—called “infection-and-treatment” because the animals are infected with whole parasites while being treated with antibiotics to stop development of disease—has proved highly effective. But initial stocks produced in the 1990s recently ran low.

‘The infection-and-treatment immunisation method against East Coast fever was developed by research conducted over three decades by the East African Community, the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (Kari) at Muguga, and ILRI.

‘In addition to producing the infection-and-treatment vaccine, ILRI is also working to develop a genetically engineered next-generation vaccine. ILRI, at the request of the Africa Union/Inter-African Bureau for Animal Resources and chief veterinary officers in affected countries, produced one million doses of vaccine to fill this gap.

‘However, for the longer term it is critical that sustainable commercial systems for vaccine production, distribution and delivery are established.

‘With Sh2.2 billion provided by DFID and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the charity GALVmed is fostering innovative commercial means to do just this, beginning with the registration and commercial distribution and delivery of this new batch of the vaccine. . . .’

Read the whole article at the Standard (Kenya): Mass production of vaccine to livestock, 16 April 2011.

 

A woman and her cow: Of bovine bank loans and entrepreneurship

In Khulungira Village, in central Malawi, farmer Jinny Lemson, 32, started acquiring livestock with her husband ten years ago as an investment. Neither grew up with animals. First they bought chickens, then goats, then pigs, sheep, and cows. They also have ducks, cats and dogs. They grow all the feed on their farm. ‘Our life has completely changed. We used to eat meat once a month. Now we’re eating it twice a week, and eggs three times a week. The kids are healthier than before.’ Here she brings her cows in to stable.

The Washington Post has published an opinion piece by Michael Gerson that ostensibly aims to educate its readers on just how US budget cuts could impact poor people struggling to get ahead in poor countries.

To do this, Gerson tells the story of a single Malawian woman, Donata Kuchawo, and her single cow, Zoali (‘a resting place’). It is remarkable how often such a woman or a man ‘and a cow’ stories serve to tell a bigger tale, a tale emblematic of the struggles and successes of poor rural people in poor countries everywhere—and how much these people depend on their ‘livestock assets’ to make a living, and to work themselves out of poverty. Here’s Kuchawo’s story.

‘Donata Kuchawo’s cow pen is as clean as a well-tended garden. She has only one cow, but she owes it a great deal.

‘Before the cow, she scraped by on subsistence farming—exhausting, back-bending work, rewarded only by survival. Her five children spent part of each year hungry.

‘After getting the cow, she could sell its milk at the local dairy cooperative, which provided year-round income. She paid the school fees for her children and bought fertilizer to increase the yield of her maize field. She now employs four people to work her property, grows soybeans, peaches and sugar cane, and raises ducks and five pigs. . . .

‘Despite the varied frustrations of the farmer, her life is now easier than scratching dirt in a field. She named her cow Zoali, which means “a resting place”. . . .

‘About 80 percent of Malawians are farmers. Their nation is one of the world’s most impoverished, mainly because agricultural productivity is poor. . . .

‘The solutions are not complex: higher yielding, disease- and pest-resistant varieties of plants, and fertilizer to improve played-out soil. These are the elements of any green revolution. Income from higher crop productivity can be invested in the purchase of a cow—a local bank offers a three-year bovine loan.

‘A farmer producing milk can go from $300 in annual income to $1,200. . . .

‘The promotion of agriculture—funding research on improved hybrids, training local companies in seed production, providing extension services to farmers—is among the best examples of long-term, bootstrap development. It is the kind of foreign assistance that encourages enterprise and independence, and that avoids the need for emergency famine relief. . . .

‘Donata Kuchawo demonstrates the hidden entrepreneurship found even among the poorest of the poor. Sometimes it only takes a cow to unleash it.’

Read the whole article in the Washington Post: In Malawi, the toll of U.S. budget-cutting, 14 March 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)

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