“Solution-driven Research 4 Development”
On January 1, 2012, our CGIAR Research Program ‘more meat, milk and fish by and for the poor’ became operational.
It aims to increase the productivity of small-scale livestock and fish systems in sustainable ways, making meat, milk and fish more available and affordable to poor consumers across the developing world.
We seek to address two big challenges …
- Poor people in developing countries, especially women and children, eat very little meat, milk and fish. This contributes to nutrient deficiencies, poor physical and cognitive development for children, and poor health and livelihood outcomes for adults. Can we improve their diets, helping them to healthy and productive lives?
- The productivity of small and medium-scale livestock and fish producers and marketing systems in developing countries generally lags far behind those in other parts of the world. Can we sustainably increase their productivity to benefit producers AND consumers, helping them to food secure futures?
We aim to take advantage of several opportunities …
- Meat, milk and fish are among the highest value agricultural products globally; these offer viable livelihoods for even the poorest.
- Even modest amounts of animal-source foods provide critical inputs to the health of malnourished people, especially women and children.
- Meeting a rapidly increasing demand for animal-source foods in developing countries is a big opportunity for smallholders to earn a better living.
- 400 million people in Africa and South Asia depend on fish for most of their animal protein. Over 100 million landless people keep livestock and nearly 1 billion (70%) of the world’s 1.4 billion extremely poor people depend on livestock. If we get it right, the potential ‘market’ to take up and benefit from this research is massive.
- Two-thirds of the world’s livestock keepers are rural women; this program can strongly contribute to development equity and empowerment goals.
Join us in weaving these together to ensure that animal source foods and livestock products – milk, meat and fish – truly benefit the poorest producers and consumers in developing countries.
Our integrated ‘solution-driven research for development approach’ combines upstream technology development with downstream transformation of selected high-potential value chains.
This work, conducted in close collaboration with governments, non-governmental organizations, the private sector and large development agencies, will allow us to directly benefit the lives of hundreds of thousands of poor and vulnerable people in the eight countries where we are working.
Moreover, these partnerships will also serve to get the results to scale, as international public goods – beyond the selected eight countries and nine value chains – into the hands and mouths of communities across Africa, Asia and Latin America.
- Read how we will do this …
- Where we will work … (9 value chains in 8 countries)
- The three components of our program … (technology development, value chain development, targeting and impact)
- Which projects are we working on?
- Download the Proposal with full information; or read a short brochure.
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