152132 research outputs found
Sort by
Stakeholder Meeting on Livestock Bill 2024, ILRI, Nairobi, 5 November 2024
No full textIn Kenya, livestock encompasses cattle, sheep, goats, camels, poultry, and pigs, along with emerging areas like beekeeping and rabbit farming. The sector is a cornerstone of economic growth, food security, and livelihoods, employing nearly half of the agricultural workforce, contributing about 12% to the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and accounting for 40% of the agricultural GDP. Recognizing the sector's essential role in Kenya's economy and food security, the government has embedded livestock into key strategic frameworks, including Vision 2030 and the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA). Vision 2030 targets increased productivity, value addition, market expansion, and climate resilience, while Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA) focuses on boosting livestock productivity, empowering small-scale farmers, and enhancing resilience for pastoral communities—all aimed to create jobs, reducing poverty, and strengthening food security across the country.
Additionally, the Kenyan Parliament has previously tabled several bills, including the Livestock Bill 2019, aimed at streamlining the livestock sector through structured regulation, enhanced infrastructure, and the establishment of dedicated institutions for training and marketing. Although this Bill had significant potential to reform the sector, it elicited varied responses from stakeholders, which contributed to delays in its enactment. Consequently, these insights and concerns informed the drafting of the subsequent Livestock Bill 2024.
The Livestock Bill 2024 aims to advance sector development through the regulation of inputs and products, investment in research and capacity building, and creation of dedicated agencies and training institutions, among other objectives. Positioned as a comprehensive update, the Bill addresses gaps identified in the Livestock Bill 2019, and in line with Kenya's legislative process, stakeholder feedback is essential for refining the Bill’s provisions. Against this backdrop, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) together with African Group of Negotiators Expert Support (AGNES, and Centre for Minority Rights Development (CMRD) convened a meeting to gather and synthesize stakeholder insights on the Livestock Bill 2024, helping shape further discussions and inform key articles in the Bill
Rural diversification in the Philippines: effects of agricultural growth and the macroeconomic environment
No full text
Different cooking styles enhance antioxidant properties and carotenoids of biofortified pumpkin (Cucurbita moschata Duch) genotypes
No full textBiofortification is an important technique where the nutritional quality of food crops is enriched through the increase of nutrient content. Provitamin A deficiency is still a public health concern mainly in developing countries. Since beta-carotene is a vitamin A precursor, the increase of this compound in foods through biofortification is a manner to reach people under hidden hunger condition. This work aimed to evaluate the effect of different cooking styles on carotenoids content and antioxidant activity of two different genotypes of biofortified Cucurbita moschata. In the present study, biofortified pumpkins submitted to different cooking conditions were assessed for antioxidant activity by ABTS, DPPH, β-carotene/linoleic acid systems and have polyphenols and carotenoids content compared. The cooking style affected the antioxidant activity. Pumpkins from genotype 1 showed high levels of carotenoids, α-carotene and all-E-β-carotene compared to samples from genotype 2. There was an increase of all carotenoids in both cooked pumpkins, and steam cooking showed the highest retention percentages. Steam cooking presented a higher percentage of carotenoid retention. Pumpkin consumption in developing countries, especially in the Northeast Brazil may be promoted to combat vitamin A deficiency
A 10-food group dietary diversity score outperforms a 7-food group score in characterizing seasonal variability and micronutrient adequacy in rural Zambian children
No full textPiloting reusable plastic crates in the tomato value chain in Tanzania
No full textThis study shows that reusable plastic crates outperform traditional wooden crates in reducing postharvest losses and maintaining tomato quality throughout the supply chain in northern Tanzania. Traditional wooden crates have a weight loss of 1.9% from farm to retailer, and the plastic crates only have a loss of 1%. Reusable plastic crates minimize compression damage and overloading, leading to lower weight and quality losses compared to traditional wooden crates. Additionally, tomatoes transported in plastic crates achieved higher market value, as better quality resulted in improved prices
Gender transformative research from proposal writing to evaluation
No full textHow to integrate Gender equality and social inclusion in proposal writing
Where are we on the gender agenda
Frameworks
Diverse donor expectations
Tools/guides
Concrete examples
How to apply Gender transformative approaches – tools and guidelines
Where we are
Gender transformative approaches – WorldFish/FAO, Gender Impact platform/GTA COP
Gender transformative indicators
Some concrete examples
How to develop inclusive gender communication
What to focus on
Some concrete example
Translating theory into practice: a flexible decision-making tool to support the design and implementation of climate-smart agriculture projects
No full textContext: Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is a conceptual framework for responding climate-related risk in agriculture across the three pillars of Mitigation, Resilience, and Production. Existing tools have been developed which seek to operationalize the CSA concept to evaluate and benchmark progress; each of which have their own relative strengths and weaknesses. Objective: The translation of this concept into actionable projects/portfolios hence requires the careful evaluation of potential trade-offs and synergies between these three pillars. The hereby presented decision-making tool aims to offer a basis for a structured evaluation of such trade-offs and synergies. Methods: It does so by assessing five different outcome pathways on how they contribute to a project's performance across the three pillars of CSA. We aspire that the use of this tool will allow for more deliberate design and implementation of projects in agricultural development, increasing the resilience and productivity of farming systems whilst ensuring the sustainable use of the environmental resource-based agriculture depends on. Results and conclusions: This tool was applied in a workshop setting to evaluate the relative strengths and weaknesses of two distinct projects; demonstrating the utility in visualizing the same performance in different ways. Of particular importance was ability to demonstrate how focusing on productivity and adaptation may trade-off mitigation activities. Significance: The results of the case study application demonstrated the challenge in meeting all the CSA requirements; particularly where the main objective of a project is to enhance and increase productivity. This reinforces how supporting all three pillars is challenging for a single project and therefore CSA is arguably more achievable when viewed in terms of a portfolio of activities which can collectively compensate for the limitations of a single project
Phenotyping and association analysis of grain zinc content with agro-morphological traits in a core rice germplasm
No full textA set of 47 biofortified core germplasm lines of rice were estimated for grain zinc (Zn) content to explore high Zn donors and to determine the degree of association of Zn content with agro-morphological traits including seed yield. The top Zn dense (≥20ppm) genotypes identified were Nagina 22 (28.1ppm), BG 102(25.8ppm), Dudh Kandar (25.6ppm), R-RHZ-7 (24.7ppm) and IR 85850-AC157-1 (24.0ppm). R-RHZ-7 recorded maximum EBT/m2 along with long panicle, while Nagina 22 maintained dwarf plant type with excellent grain fertility (≥92%), thin hull and known high degree of drought tolerance. Among these, IR 85850-AC157-1(24.0ppm) and R-RHZ-7 (24.7ppm) retained high grain zinc content along with moderately high seed yield potential. Grain number/panicle (r=0.757**), days to flowering, days to maturity and fertility percentage revealed strong positive correlation with seed yield. Grain Zn content had non-significant negative association with seed yield indicating genetic enhancement for Zn may not have much yield penalty. Interestingly, Zn content revealed positive significant relationship with grain breadth, but feeble negative association with grain length and kernel length indicating that selection for bold grain types would enrich Zn content. The above Zn rich elite genotypes with desirable ancillary traits may serve as potential donors for biofortification breeding programme