ILRI researcher wins University of Queensland alumni award

Tarni Cooper with children from a livestock-keeping household in Morogoro, Tanzania (photo credit: ILRI/Tarni Cooper).

We are pleased to congratulate Tarni Cooper, a veterinary scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), on being named as one of five recipients of the 2014 Distinguished Young Alumni awards of the University of Queensland (UQ). The award will be presented at a ceremony scheduled for 2 October 2014.

The award recognises outstanding alumni aged 35 years or younger whose early accomplishments inspire and provide leadership to students and alumni. She was a UQ valedictorian in 2010 when she was awarded her Bachelor of Veterinary Science degree with honours and also won the Dr John Gibb Biosecurity Memorial Prize that year.

In 2013, Cooper worked with ILRI’s Food Safety and Zoonoses program as an Australian Youth Ambassador for Development and was part of a research team that worked in rural Tanzania on a project to assess the presence of a range of potential pathogens in smallholder dairy cattle. She studied the use of various communication approaches to obtain informed consent during research.

An enumerator uses a poster to obtain informed consent for research in Morogoro, Tanzania (photo credit: ILRI/Tarni Cooper).

Livestock keepers in Morogoro, Tanzania examine a poster used to obtain informed consent for research (photo credit: ILRI/Tarni Cooper).

Previously, she spent time in Vietnam during a five-year project, working with smallholder pig farmers and using participatory video as an innovative communication approach to help the farmers learn from each other and improve their pig production methods. Earlier this year she returned to Vietnam and used participatory photography to study the long-term impact of the film.

Cooper is currently collaborating with ILRI on a Vietnam-based project on livestock competitiveness and food safety, as well as serving on the Institutional Research Ethics Committee. Her next career goal is to undertake a PhD in communication for social change.

 

New livestock maps pinpoint ‘danger zones’ for possible spread of deadly H7N9 strain of bird flu

ILRI Clippings

Feeding poultry in Bangladesh (photo on Flickr by WorldFish).

A recent paper that maps the global distributions of the world’s major livestock species has already been used to advance understanding of where surveillance efforts should be targeted to prevent the possible spread of a lethal bird flu virus now circulating in poultry populations in China, where it has killed 62 people. The original mapping work, led by Tim Robinson, of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), and published at the end of May, was immediately put to practical use in locating large regions in South and Southeast Asia that would suit the new lethal virus. Ominously, unlike H5N1, a viral strain of bird flu that has killed millions of poultry and at least 359 humans since its first appearance in 1987, H7N9 does not cause severe illness in the chickens it infects, making it much more difficult to detect, and…

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Dynamic Drivers of Disease in Africa Consortium publishes research updates

Orma Boran cattle crossing a river in Kenya. A new research update by the Drivers of Disease in Africa Consortium offers insights into the drivers of Rift Valley fever in Kenya (photo credit: ILRI/R. Dolan)

The Dynamic Drivers of Disease in Africa Consortium has published five situation analysis research updates, one for each of its case study countries. Each update outlines the background to the case study disease being investigated, the key questions the research team is exploring, some of the knowns and unknowns, and the research methodologies being followed.

Bernard Bett, a veterinary epidemiologist at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) is the leader of the Kenya team that is exploring the drivers of Rift Valley fever in Kenya.

The updates are available for download from the links below (PDF):

• Situation Analysis Research Update Ghana
• Situation Analysis Research Update Kenya
• Situation Analysis Research Update Sierra Leone
• Situation Analysis Research Update Zambia
• Situation Analysis Research Update  Zimbabwe

 

New study links the rise of zoonotic diseases to intensive farming and environmental changes

Farmer Ma Thi Puong feeds her pigs on her farm near the northern town of Meo Vac, Vietnam. Intensification of livestock farming has been found to increase the risk of zoonotic disease transmission (photo credit: ILRI/Stevie Mann).

Modern farming practices, such as intensified livestock production, as well as environmental and biodiversity changes can be linked to the new wave of zoonotic diseases, according to a new study published in the 21 May 2013 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Human population growth and the expansion of agriculture to meet the ever-rising demand for food have been identified as the key drivers of recent outbreaks of emerging and re-emerging zoonotic diseases.

These human behavioural changes have led to encroachment of wildlife habitats, resulting in greater interactions between people, livestock and wildlife and increased chances of spillover of potential pathogens from wildlife to livestock and, consequently, people.

“Intensive livestock farming, especially of pigs and poultry, increases the risk of disease transmission due to increased population size and density,” the study reveals.

Environmental changes arising from settlement and agriculture, including land fragmentation, deforestation and replacement of natural vegetation with crops, alter the structure of wildlife population, giving rise to new environmental conditions that favour specific hosts, vectors and pathogens.

The study was carried out in form of a systematic review by a multidisciplinary team of researchers from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the Royal Veterinary College, University of London.

The research team sought to analyze qualitatively scientific evidence on the effect of agricultural intensification and environmental change on the risk of zoonoses transmission at the interface of humans, livestock and wildlife.

While the study has identified a clear link between the threat of zoonotic disease and the wildlife-livestock interface, it does not adequately address the complex interactions between the environmental, social and biological drivers of pathogen emergence.

For this reason, there is need to carry out local interdisciplinary studies that can come up with locally relevant solutions to tackle the threat of emerging and re-emerging zoonoses, the authors conclude.

Delia Grace, veterinary epidemiologist and food safety expert at ILRI, is among the co-authors of the study. Grace also leads the agriculture-associated diseases theme of the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health.

Read the full-text article

Citation: Jones BA, Grace D, Kock R, Alonso S, Rushton J, Said MY, McKeever D, Mutua F, Young J, McDermott J and Pfeiffer DU. 2013. Zoonosis emergence linked to agricultural intensification and environmental change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) 110(21): 8399-8404.

 

Experts call for One Health approach to tackling zoonotic diseases

Cattle coming in from the fields in the evening in Lhate Village, Chokwe, Mozambique (photo credit: ILRI/Stevie Mann).

A group of research experts associated with the Dynamic Drivers of Disease in Africa Consortium have called for a system-based ‘One Health’ approach to help catalyze better preparedness and surveillance that are informed by cross-disciplinary approaches.

One Health is a globally recognised approach established to promote the collaborative effort of multiple disciplines, working locally, nationally and globally, to attain optimal health for people, animals and the environment.

Writing in an Institute of Development Studies (IDS) Rapid Response Briefing titled Zoonoses – From Panic to Planning (January 2013), the researchers also note that One Health could help “accelerate research discoveries, enhance the efficacy of response and prevention efforts, and improve education and care”.

However, realigning policy to embrace One Health requires a shift in focus from the current disease-centred approach to one that considers the whole system and takes into account human health, animal health and ecosystems.

Over two-thirds of all human infectious diseases have their origins in animals. The rate at which these zoonotic diseases have appeared in people has increased over the past 40 years, with at least 43 newly identified outbreaks since 2004. In 2012, outbreaks included Ebola in Uganda, yellow fever in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rift Valley fever in Mauritania.

Zoonotic diseases have a huge impact – and a disproportionate one on the poorest people in the poorest countries. In low-income countries, 20% of human sickness and death is due to zoonoses. Poor people suffer further when development implications are not factored into disease planning and response strategies.

A new, integrated ‘One Health’ approach to zoonoses that moves away from top-down disease-focused intervention is urgently needed. With this, we can put people first by factoring development implications into disease preparation and response strategies – and so move from panic to planning.

The briefing is lead authored by Delia Grace, veterinary epidemiologist and food safety expert at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). She leads ILRI’s research team on animal health, food safety and zoonoses as well as a research component on prevention and control of agriculture-associated diseases under the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health.

Citation: Grace D, Holley C, Jones K, Leach M, Marks N, Scoones I, Welburn S and Wood J. 2013. Zoonoses – From panic to planning. IDS Rapid Response Briefing 2. IDS (Institute of Development Studies), Brighton, UK.

 

Position paper by ILRI highlights the role of livestock in food and nutrition security

Typical mixed crop-livestock farming in western Kenya. Mixed crop-livestock farming systems currently produce most of the world’s meat, milk and staple crops (photo credit: ILRI/Pye-Smith).

The January 2013 issue of Animal Frontiers, the world’s premier review magazine in animal agriculture, features a series of articles on the contribution of animal agriculture to global food security.

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) has contributed to this series with a position paper that highlights the direct and indirect effects of livestock on food and nutrition security. The paper also considers the future prospects of mixed crop-livestock farming systems that produce most of the world’s milk, meat and staple crops.

The paper by ILRI director general Jimmy Smith and colleagues begins with a brief overview of the global challenge of food and nutrition security and the net impact of livestock on global food supply. This is followed by a review of the direct contributions of livestock to nutrition security and the indirect effects of livestock on food security.

Food security is said to exist when “all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life”. In development discourse, the term ‘food security’ is often used to emphasize the aspect of food quantity while ‘nutrition security’ captures the quality dimension.

The position paper offers a balanced analysis by exploring both the beneficial impacts (e.g. improved nutrition and health, income from the sale of animals or produce, draught power and provision of manure) and the harmful ones (e.g. zoonotic diseases, health risks from over-consumption of animal-source foods and production of greenhouse gases).

“Livestock contribute to food supply by converting low-value materials, inedible or unpalatable for people, into milk, meat, and eggs; livestock also decrease food supply by competing with people for food, especially grains fed to pigs and poultry. Currently, livestock supply 13% of energy to the world’s diet but consume one-half the world’s production of grains to do so.

However, livestock directly contribute to nutrition security. Milk, meat and eggs, the “animal-source foods,” though expensive sources of energy, are one of the best sources of high quality protein and micronutrients that are essential for normal development and good health. But poor people tend to sell rather than consume the animal-source foods that they produce.

The contribution of livestock to food, distinguished from nutrition security among the poor, is mostly indirect: sales of animals or produce, demand for which is rapidly growing, can provide cash for the purchase of staple foods, and provision of manure, draft power, and income for purchase of farm inputs can boost sustainable crop production in mixed crop-livestock systems.

Livestock have the potential to be transformative: by enhancing food and nutrition security, and providing income to pay for education and other needs, livestock can enable poor children to develop into healthy, well-educated, productive adults. The challenge is how to manage complex trade-offs to enable livestock’s positive impacts to be realized while minimizing and mitigating negative ones, including threats to the health of people and the environment.”

On the future role of mixed crop-livestock farming systems, the authors note that it is important to look into issues related to production efficiency as well as market engagement in defining how these systems are to evolve in order to remain competitive, equitable and environmentally stable while continuing to contribute to human nutrition and health.

The paper concludes:

“Many poor livestock keepers report that a key motivation for keeping livestock is to earn income so their children can attend school and, perhaps, go on to benefit from further education. By providing essential nutrients, especially in the first critical 1,000 days from conception, animal-source foods can help ensure normal physical and cognitive development.

The combined impacts of meeting nutritional needs and providing income make livestock a powerful force for the poor. Well-nourished and well-educated youngsters can grow up to be healthy young adults who are able to realize their full potential and earn higher incomes, in the process enhancing the well-being of their families, communities, and society. The impact of this on food and nutrition security at household, national, and global levels cannot be overstated and demands innovative research, development, and policy approaches.”

Read the full article here

Citation: Smith J, Sones K, Grace D, MacMillan S, Tarawali S and Herrero M. 2013. Beyond milk, meat, and eggs: Role of livestock in food and nutrition security. Animal Frontiers 3(1): 6-13.