Knowledge

Pastoral and agro-pastoral systems, if well managed, are the best-suited and adaptive form of agriculture for the majority of Kyrgyzstan’s land area that is too dry, cold, or mountainous for crop farming.

The Small Ruminants Investment and Graduating Households in Transition Project (SIGHT) aims to reduce poverty and improve national food security among Syrian refugees and host communities in Jordan by providing a package of support to boost small-ruminant productivity.

This paper focuses on activities targeting improved pasture management, supplemental feed sources and livestock value chain development.

This publication synthesizes IFAD’s experience on introducing Community Pasture Management Plans in Kyrgyzstan and how the historical and legal context led to the creation of a modernized and sustainable pasture management system.

This publication provides a brief background on rangeland management in Tajikistan and offers key principles of rotational grazing practices that explain how and why such systems can achieve ecologically sustainable outcomes.

 

In this review, the role of farmed animals in circular food systems in the tropics is presented in four case studies.

This is the first publication exclusively focusing on yak wool production and its commercialization, incorporating the socio-environmental narrative attached to High Asia region and its herders communities.

More than half of all rural Cambodian households keep poultry. Local bird breeds are the highest in demand in the local market, especially during festivals and celebrations.

This is case study is on the innovative poultry model, implemented by Green Innovet Cam with IFAD, in Cambodia.

This report presents selected achievements and lessons learned from the growing portfolio of small livestock investments supported by IFAD. 

The Adaptation Framework is a repository of adaptation actions for small-scale agriculture, including livestock, forestry, and fisheries. It provides an approach for incorporating adaptation practices into project design.

This HTDN complements the IFAD Toolkit along with the 2018 HTDN on Pastoralism, which highlights the importance of gender in pastoral production systems.

The RLMA guide seeks to facilitate livestock market assessments in order to support those operating in the livestock sector, such as multilateral financial institutions, international development organizations, governments, research organizations, NGOs, community-based organizations, service providers and input suppliers.

The IFAD-funded SWAZI BEEF project set out to increase the quality of livestock and meat products and to diversify farmers’ incomes in the sugar-cane-producing areas of Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) through targeted support to farmers and other value chain actors (livestock producers, butchers/meat processors, financial institutions and input providers). 

Pastoralism is a way of life based on territorial mobility, adopted in response to the challenges faced by human communities living in harsh or difficult environments.

This How To Do Note first outlines the problems developers need to be aware of in pastoral development.

These lessons learned have been developed for planners and policymakers: (a) to help them avoid investment strategies and policies that impact negatively on pastoralists; and (b) to enable them to ensure that specific policies and plans for pastoral development are more closely tailored to the needs of pastoralists.

Investments in smallholder goat development and related value chains are effective means to reduce poverty and increase the incomes of men and women from resource-poor households. They are also effective channels to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment in remote mountainous
areas.
 

Developing smallholder pig value chains in Uganda to increase rural incomes and adapt to climate change.

This note describes the land tenure issues faced by pastoralists and how IFAD has dealt with some of these through its programmes and projects.

This joint evaluation synthesis report (JES) has been prepared by FAO and IFAD Evaluation Offices (OED  and IOE) within the framework of ‘Statement Intent’ of 2 April 2013 for strengthening collaboration across the two  Rome-based agencies.

Livestock contribute to the livelihoods of roughly 70 per cent of the world’s poor, supporting farmers, consumers, traders and laborers throughout the developing world. The increasing demand for livestock products for the growing populations of developing countries, particularly in Africa, offers new market opportunities for poor farmers in rural areas.

Success in raising small-farmer productivity leads to improvements in household food security, nutrition and income, leading to poverty reduction. However, in vast areas of sub-Saharan Africa, increased and sustained animal production by small farmers is greatly hampered by livestock diseases. Animal diseases severely constrain livestock enterprises of smallholder livestock keepers in sub-Saharan Africa but are not given the attention they deserve by the global community

In August 2015, a grant agreement was signed between IFAD and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to “demonstrate that the goat subsector in India has a great potential to contribute to poverty alleviation and offers opportunities where donors can partner with private sector, public sector, and producers to effect large-scale productivity improvement in small ruminant value chains in Bihar, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh states”.

Access to modern renewable energy services is a key factor in eradicating poverty and ensuring food security.

The World Initiative for Sustainable Pastoralism (WISP) is a global knowledge and advocacy network that promotes understanding of sustainable pastoral development for both poverty reduction and sustainable environmental management. WISP was executed by the International Union for Nature Conservation (IUCN).

The Programme built the capacity of pastoral institutions to engage in advocacy based on state-of-the-art global learning on sustainable pastoralism, enabling pastoralist institutions around the world to network and shared experiences and opportunities, and ensured that the voice of pastoralists remained central to policy discourse and learning.

Smallholder livestock production is largely based on family farming and is key to poor rural people’s livelihoods, food security and employment creation. 

This note highlights lessons learned on pastoralism land rights and tenure aiming to inform the design and implementation of country strategies and projects from the point of view of land tenure issues faced by pastoralists.

It also provides examples of how IFAD has dealt with some of these issues through its programmes and projects.

Article in F@rmletter - The E-magazine of the World’s Farmers (pg 12-13). It describes the Flexi Biogas system as an innovative portable biogas model. 

This was the result of small grant to pilot the technology as part of the Innovation Mainstreaming Initiative funded by the UK Department for International Development.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) are funding a number of projects developed to help achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) related to improving food security, income generation and women’s empowerment, while respecting traditional knowledge and socio-cultural values. 

Family poultry production plays an essential role in some of these projects.

An IFAD Supervision Mission visited the project from 20th June to 5th July 2013. The main 1.objectives of the supervision mission are to ensure that the development objectives of the projects are being met and to satisfy IFAD‟s fiduciary responsibilities, with a focus on: (i) assessment of the implementation progress of the project, including assessment of the achievement of outputs by component and outcome as per the logframe of the project; (ii) assistance to identify and remove implementation bottlenecks and constraints; and (iii) agree on a set of actions to be implemented by the project in the next six to twelve months period.

The most common type of biogas system, and the most widely adopted in China and India, is a fixed dome system. Its construction requires skilled technical expertise and complex logistics, making installation expensive and time-consuming. Fixed dome systems are permanent installations, so secure land tenure is a prerequisite. These challenges make it difficult to adopt fixed dome systems in developing countries, particularly in Africa. As a result, many systems have failed and adoption rates have been low.

Another type of biogas system, manufactured in Kenya, is Flexi Biogas, a flexible above- ground system that is simpler and less costly to build and operate. This system does not require agitation and the digester is not a sealed tank but simply a 6m x 3m plastic bag made of PVC tarpaulin.
For more information please click on the link below.

The paper highlights the issues arising from the Global Gathering of Women Pastoralists (2010) which brought together over 100 women from herding communities across 32 different countries to discuss the challenges faced by pastoralist women and girls, and their potential opportunities.

It aims to support development practitioners in planning specific interventions and mainstreaming issues that potentially affect pastoralist women into the implementation stages of development initiatives. 

The paper is part of the IFAD Livestock Thematic Papers on Livestock and Pastoralists and Gender and Livestock, which offer an in-depth view of the broader context.

This Thematic Paper is part of a toolkit for development practitioners, created to support the design of appropriate livestock development interventions. It has been developed to assess existing synergies between livestock and the renewable energy sector and consider the potential benefits that could arise from their interactions, such as mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, environmental preservation (soil restoration), and availability of clean, affordable and reliable energy sources (e.g. biogas). 

The paper is divided into two sections. The first part looks at the livestock’s potential as a renewable energy source. Through, for example, the use of cost-effective technologies such as biogas systems that can stem methane emissions from livestock manure by recovering the gas and using it as an energy source in alternative to wood/charcoal or fossil fuel. 

The second part, given the climate change scenario, considers viable applications of Renewable Energy Technologies (RETs) addressed for small-scale farmers and livestock keepers at different levels of the value chain that can provide multifunctional benefits for households, community and environment. 

IFAD’s goal is that rural women and men in developing countries are empowered to achieve higher incomes and improved food security at the household level. In this way it will contribute to the achievement of Millennium Development Goal #1: “The eradication of extreme poverty”. (IFAD, Strategic Framework 2007-2010)

This Thematic Paper is part of a Toolkit for Project Design (Livestock Thematic Papers: Tools for Project Design) which reflects IFAD’s commitment to developing a sustainable livestock sector in which poor farmers and herders might have higher incomes, and better access to assets, services, technologies and markets.

The paper indents to be a practical tool for development practitioners, project designers and policymakers to define appropriate livestock development interventions. It also provides recommendations on critical issues for rural development and also possible responses and actions to encourage the socio-economic empowerment of poor livestock keepers.