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Africa RISING feed

BRIEF FOCUS: Optimal spacing for groundnuts in smallholder farming systems

Increasing the planting density for groundnut generates multiple benefits by boosting yields of grain and fodder per unit area. It enhances soil fertility, improves water retention, and prevents weed growth, thereby raising farmers’ food security and incomes. This four-page brief, prepared by...

  • Jonathan Odhong
AgHealth blog

Marking World Food Safety Day 2021 with a focus on ILRI’s food safety research

World Food Safety Day is celebrated annually on 7 June to raise awareness on the importance of safe food and its contribution to healthy lives, healthy economies and a healthy future. The theme this year is Safe food now for a healthy tomorrow . Our food systems need to produce enough safe food for...

Africa RISING feed

BRIEF FOCUS: Conservation agriculture in maize-legume systems

Conservation agriculture (CA) is a promising technology for supporting sustainable increases in productivity. It helps farmers achieve more reliable and often higher yields while reducing production costs, increases dietary diversity, improves soil structure and fertility, maximizes nutrient and...

  • Jonathan Odhong
AgHealth blog

New report examines the impacts of COVID-19 control measures on food safety in East Africa

Following the global outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), measures to contain its spread have affected several aspects of the food value chain, including safety. Although COVID-19 is not transmitted through food, poor hygiene and sanitation can enhance its spread. Scientists from the...

AgHealth blog

Putting One Health into practice: A call to action for animal health

Action for Animal Health is a new coalition that aims to secure greater support for animal health systems with a focus on: increasing and improving the animal health workforce; closing the veterinary medicines and vaccines gap; improving animal disease detection, surveillance and management;...

Africa RISING feed

Africa RISING publishes a livestock feed and forage production manual for Ethiopia

A farmer in his fodder beet farm in Embahasti (photo credit: Apollo Habtamu/ILRI). Livestock plays a major role in the livelihoods of pastoralists and smallholder farmers in Ethiopia. They are a source of food (animal protein) for most families in the country and also support crop production...

  • Haimanot Seifu
CGIAR Research Program on Livestock

Anatomy of a ‘hybrid’ virtual and face-to-face project workshop

On 23 and 24 February 2021, the Uganda ‘ MorePork ’ project of the CGIAR Research Program on Livestock held a stakeholder workshop in Kampala and online. We set out to devise a process that would provide a single shared experience for the 40-50 people in Kampala as well as the 20 or so virtual...

  • Peter Ballantyne, Maria Nassuna-Musoke, Tsehay Gashaw, Pamela Wairagala
CGIAR Research Program on Livestock

Survey of 9000 smallholders finds COVID-19 pandemic is causing hunger

Irene Kizito and her husband are subsistence farmers in Kijjabwemi, a small town in southern Uganda. COVID-19 is making life harder. “We are still struggling to get food to eat,” says Kizito, who is 62. Some days, they don’t eat at all. The disruptions caused by the pandemic have meant that Kizito...

  • Kate Evans
Africa RISING feed

Disseminating livestock extension information using text messages in Tanzania

A Maasai pastoralist checks his mobile phone (photo credit: Sven Torfinn/OXFAM blogs). Digital tools and platforms have become a fixture in disseminating knowledge about agricultural technologies to farmers in most farming systems in sub-Saharan Africa. Their positive effect in transforming the...

  • Africa RISING communications
AgHealth blog

New review provides framework for studying food systems to address food safety and nutrition

There is a need for better understanding of how food systems operate in order to effectively address food safety and nutrition in low- and middle-income countries, says a new review paper. The review published in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems (Apr 2021) proposes that countries and...

CGIAR Research Program on Livestock

Community conversations contribute to transform gender relations in rural Ethiopia

Since 2018, researchers from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) and development partners have been testing a gender transformative, community-based learning approach known as ‘community conversation...

  • Mamusha Lemma, Abiro Tigabie and Mesfin Mekonnen
AgHealth blog

Experts call for increased investment in One Health to reduce the burden of neglected zoonoses

One Health is a concept that recognizes that the health of people is linked to the health of animals and their shared environment. A One Health approach in preventing and controlling diseases therefore involves the collaborative efforts of multiple disciplines and sectors. This approach is...