The Animal Health and Production Compendium (AHPC) is a time-saving encyclopaedic, interactive database that draws together scientific information on all aspects of animal health and production. It includes information on livestock and poultry diseases, breeds, nutrition, husbandry, and food safety and quality of animal products.

Published and updated by CABI, the AHPC is an initiative of over 20 members of a global Development Consortium, which, alongside IFAD, includes technical institutions, other development assistance agencies and private-sector companies. The cost of updating the Compendium annually is offset by revenue gained from on-line subscription and sales of the CD version. Access to the Compendium is available to all IFAD staff, Project Management Units and associates: contact PTmailbox@ifad.org for username and password. All other users can request a free trial.

IFAD’s involvement in the Global Compendium Programme

IFAD is a member of the Animal Health and Production Compendium (AHPC) Development Consortium and has a seat on the steering committee influencing its future development and dissemination strategies.

An IFAD-sponsored programme of training and related activities in Tanzania, which is being carried out by CABI with the cooperation of the Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH), is exploring the potential of the Compendium to deliver knowledge to tackle fundamental problems in pro-poor livestock development. Key individuals involved in livestock production have been identified and trained to gain maximum benefit the information tool, and their use of the Compendium is being monitored over the length of the project.

A workshop on using the AHPC was held in Dar es Salaam in May 2008. There were sixteen participants including researchers, veterinarians, local government workers, livestock production extension workers, and a farmers’ magazine publisher.

As well as being used on a day-to-day basis in many of the participants’ own organizations, since the workshop, the Compendium has been used to assist in training and in the production of training materials for; among others, veterinary and para-veterinary staff, college tutors, dairy technicians and livestock field officers, covering a wide range of topics such as artificial insemination, poultry production, meat inspection and the diagnosis, treatment and control of important livestock and zoonotic diseases.

Jane Frances Asaba, CABI, assists a participant in the Third AHPC Training Workshop, University of Dar es Salaam, 10-11 June 2009.

Farmers have benefited directly from some of these training materials following their translation into Swahili and delivery in lectures by extension staff, demonstrating flow of information from the Compendium to producer level.

The AHPC has also been used in the production of extension posters with Swahili titles and captions, showing vectors and typical signs associated with important, common livestock diseases. This raised awareness that warning signals could lead to early diagnosis and, ultimately, reduce the impact of livestock disease on farmer livelihoods.

Compendium dissemination, workshop and mentoring activities will continue in 2009 to encourage further use of the Compendium and to monitor the ways in which the knowledge it provides can be applied to encourage and improve livestock development at farmer level.

What is in the Compendium?

The Compendium is designed to save time by providing easy access to vital information, with:

• Detailed information on over 300 diseases and disorders. Each disease has a datasheet covering epidemiology, geographic and host range, economic impacts, pathology, clinical signs, diagnosis, prevention, treatment, zoonoses and food safety issues.
  
• Detailed information on over 300 livestock and poultry breeds. Each datasheet covers status, husbandry, geographic range, health, nutrition, performance, products, economics, genetics and reproduction of the breed
  Information on the major groupings of animal products (meat, eggs and milk) organized by livestock and poultry species, and 25 of the most important microbial contaminants of food.
• An extensive library holds information on food-animal production topics (cattle, buffaloes, sheep, goats, pigs, poultry), including health, husbandry, housing, handling, identification, transport, behaviour, nutrition, genetics, economics, reproduction, techniques, welfare, slaughter, meat, milk, eggs, other products, and legislation.
  
• Glossary with over 50,000 definitions, a sub-set of the CAB Abstracts bibliographic database, production statistics and a database of veterinary products collated from six sources from five continents.

To find out more about the AHPC and other Compendia go to the website.