Livestock and healthy lives

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ILRI@40 Addis: Livestock and healthy lives

Reported by Tezira Lore

DAY ONE: 6 November 2014 at the Sheraton Hotel

Featured talk by Lorne Babiuk

Slideshare presentation: Healthy animals equals healthy, productive people

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Roundtable discussion: Livestock and healthy lives

Moderator: John McDermott, director, CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH)

Panellists

Watch the livestream of the roundtable discussion on livestock and healthy lives

DAY TWO: 7 November 2014 at the ILRI Addis campus

Round-up of discussions on livestock and healthy lives from Day One: Plenary presentation by John McDermott

Livestock – healthy lives: Opportunities, challenges and delivery/impact issues

< Opportunities < Challenges < Delivery / impact issues
< Early nutrition ASF for young children and poor
Mini and micro-livestock
< Quantity / quality and price of ASF for poor < Production – feed/breeds
Value chain institutions
Gender – nutrition
< < <
< Livestock potential for incomes and assets < Affordable nutrition; human health crises < Women’s empowerment
“Incentives / insurance”
< < <
< Understand and manage infectious disease dynamics < Managing intensification:
waste; population density
Antimicrobial resistance
< Knowledge and practice
Strengthen institutions
Appropriate technologies
< < <
< Manage food safety in informal markets for the poor < Poor – unorganized
More complex value chains
< Capacity of market agents
Strengthen institutions
Appropriate policy / regulations

Livestock – healthy lives: Evidence and narrative (contextual issues)

  • Complexity

Break down issues / systems and identify key drivers or tipping points Targeting populations and manage hot spots

  • Livestock goods and bads

Trade-offs: enhance benefits / mitigate risks Evidence that counts / change the narrative

  • Empower and build capacity

Women’s empowerment (roles of men and women) / time / health Build entrepreneurial capacity of farmers / market agents and institutions

Parallel session: Livestock and healthy lives in 2054 – identifying the key priority areas for research

Scene-setting presentations

Scene-setting poster

Summary of discussions The group identified the following three key priority areas for research on livestock and health in the next 40 years:

  • emerging infectious diseases;
  • vaccines and diagnostics; and
  • antimicrobial residues and resistance.

Research on emerging infectious diseases needs to focus on increased understanding of the drivers of disease, for example, agricultural intensification, climate change, new farming systems, irrigation and increased mobility of animals and people. Research activities could include mapping, modelling and analysis of vectors; vector control through the use of ‘green’ insecticides; biological control of vectors and adoption of the Ecohealth approach to disease prevention and control.

Research on vaccines should be aimed at developing safe, single-dose, affordable ‘combination’ vaccines that are easy to deliver and target multiple pathogens. Rapid diagnostics that can be used along the food chain and are linked into large databases for surveillance can provide early warning systems for quick detection and reporting of potential health hazards and timely intervention.

Research on antibiotic residues and resistance needs to ensure prudent use of antimicrobials for treatment of farm animals to avoid residues in animal-source food products. The transfer of antibiotic resistance from animals to milk, meat and eggs was also identified as an important research area.

Reporting back to plenary

AgHealth blog post High-profile ILRI conference discusses the future of livestock research for healthy animals and people by Tezira Lore