6th All Africa Conference on Animal Agriculture

27 – 30 October 2014. Nairobi. Kenyatta International Conference Centre. This meeting provided a forum for researchers, policy makers, entrepreneurs and other stakeholders to share scientific findings and experiences in animal agriculture in Africa and beyond, after every four years. This 6th AACAA builds from previous successful conferences held in Nairobi (1992), Pretoria (South Africa, 1996), Alexandria (Egypt, 2000), Arusha (Tanzania, 2005) and Addis Ababa (Ethiopia, 2010).

Some 300 participants from all over Africa and beyond are attending the conference whose theme is Africa’s animal agriculture: Macro-trends and future opportunities. The five conference sub-themes were:

• Youth: The future hope?
• Which way for smallholder production systems?
• Pastoral systems: Options for tomorrow
• Market access: Opportunities for enhanced access to local, regional and global markets
• Africa’s human capacity challenge for animal agriculture: Which way now?

Silvia Alonso a postdoctoral scientist with ILRI

Extracts: See programme

Dairy:

• Field testing a conceptual framework for innovation platform impact assessment: The Case of MilkIT dairy platforms in Tanga Region, Tanzania - Pham, N.D., Cadilhon, J.J. and Maass, B.L.
• Smallholder dairy production: Analysis of development constraints in the dairy value chain of Southern Ethiopia - Terefe, T., Oosting, S.J. and van der Lee, J.
• Dairy intensification strategies and dairy’s contribution to sustainable livelihoods in smallholder systems

  

  Welcome remarks by ILRI DG Jimmy Smith

  - Chagunda, G.G.M., Kawonga, B.S., Mankhwala, F., Tebug, S.F. and Chiwona-Karltun, L. 
• Contributed Effect of energy source on the milk production and reproduction of lactating Holstein cows
• Application of the decent work concept in labour and employment conditions on smallholder dairy farms in Nakuru county, Kenya - Ogola, T.D.O., Lagat, J.K., Kosgey, I.S., Kaufmann, B. and Margarita

Livestock

• Linking famers to high value livestock product markets in southern and  Eastern Africa: opportunities and challenges - Katjiuongua, H.B.
• Livestock and economic well-being in Africa, Yemi Akinbamijo, Executive Director, FARA, Ghana
• FARA the African apex agricultural R&D organization: professionalizing science without losing focus on small scale agriculture - Yemi Akinbamijo, Executive Director, FARA, Ghana

Silvia Alonso (see picture), a postdoctoral scientist with ILRI’s Food Safety and Zoonoses program presented the following two papers:

• Smallholder pig producers and their pork consumption practices in three districts in Uganda (presented on behalf of lead author Kristina Roesel, an ILRI graduate fellow at Freie Universitaet Berlin and coordinator of the Safe Food, Fair Food project)
• Vaccination as a way forward? A case study on how a poultry vaccination intervention influences poultry keeping in Kenya (presented on behalf of lead author Johanna Lindahl, an ILRI postdoctoral scientist)

Results from a study on Kenyan milk consumers’ behaviour and perceptions of aflatoxin were also presented. This study was a joint output of the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health and the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions and Markets.

Additionally, the following ILRI posters on smallholder dairying in Tanzania and pastoralism in Kenya and Tanzania featured in the poster session:

• Smallholder dairy farming in Tanzania: Farming practices, and animal health and public health challenges and opportunities
• Pastoralism in Kenya and Tanzania: Challenges and opportunities in animal health and food security
• Creating novel approaches to mitigate aflatoxin risk in food and feed with lactic acid bacteria – mold growth inhibition and aflatoxin binding