Last month’s UN Food Systems Summit was highly controversial. Back in July, around the pre-summit process, small-scale farmers and their allies raised concerns that the agenda was being set by…
How do we put pastoralists at the centre of food and climate debates?
Enhancing red meat safety through ‘street-level diplomacy’ in Tanzania
Rising meat consumption in Tanzania – and indeed across low- and middle-income countries – presents new challenges and opportunities for health and development and we have been considering these as…
Major new research project on animal-to-human disease transmission
The ESRC STEPS Centre has begun work on a major, international research project exploring the factors that drive animal-to-human (‘zoonotic’) disease transmission in Tanzania, with the aim of informing new…
The limits of ‘evidence’: Evidence-Based Policy-making for African agriculture
By James Sumberg, Martha Awo, John Thompson, George T-M Kwadzo and Dela-Dem Doe Fiankor, Researchers, STEPS Centre Livestock project Agricultural policy makers in Africa are now being dragged into the…
Ghana: take 70,900 metric tons of frozen chicken, add politics
A billboard advertising chicken in Accra, Ghana. By alew on Flickr By Jim Sumberg and John Thompson Convenors, STEPS Centre Livestock project The well known expression – that [something] is…
Pastoralism and Development in Africa: Dynamic change at the margins
This book takes a fresh look at the livestock sector in the Horn of Africa. The region is often in the headlines for all the wrong reasons: drought, famine, conflict…
Agriculture as Assembly (or, what is the nature of the factory in ‘factory farming’?)
By Jim Sumberg and John Thompson When considering the nature and spatial distribution of economic activity, two fundamental contrasts take centre stage: ‘urban vs. rural’ and ‘industry vs. agriculture’. While…
Video: Pastoralism in Africa – doing things differently
Our new book Pastoralism and Development in Africa explores the booming livestock trade in the Horn of Africa, a region more often associated with conflict and famine. In this video,…
SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL DYNAMICS OF DISEASE
We’ve added three new research projects we’re involved in to the website, under the heading “Socio-ecological dynamics of disease”. The projects are all looking at the social, ecological, biological and…
RURAL DEVELOPMENT AND LIVESTOCK: TRENDS, CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES
By JULIA DAY, STEPS Centre member An update on our Veterinary Science, Transboundary Animal Diseases and Markets comes from William Wolmer who gave a presentation at a Botswana workshop earlier…