Livestock production in arid and semi-arid rangelands is a risky enterprise. Covariate risk of catastrophic livestock loss due to drought is the most critical uninsured risk facing livestock producers. These losses can lead to persistent poverty. We are trying to design an index based livestock insurance (IBLI) program as a viable means to help pastoralists in northern Kenya manage such covariate risk of livestock losses due to drought.

The aim of this study was to evaluate accuracy of farmer's paternity identification which determines success of future breed selection and hence genetic gain. Paternity of 269 Orma/zebu and Sahiwal/zebu calves was evaluated using genetic markers and the likelihood based method. Results indicate that only 6.7% farmer alleged paternities were confirmed, 88% parent-offspring relationships were rejected and 18% parent-offspring relationships were undetermined. However, 82% of offsprings were assigned at least 80% confident paternities to one of the sampled candidate males.

Farmer-herder conflicts are enduring features of social life in the Sudano-Sahelian zone.

A survey was carried out between August and December 2004 in four sites in Niger,

namely Bokki, Katanga, Sabon Gida and Tountoubé to determine the proximate and

long-term causes of conflict over natural resource use, to evaluate the appropriateness of

existing institutional arrangements for managing conflicts and identify innovative options

and incentives to reduce the incidence and severity of conflicts. The research was

Marketing transactions take place in an environment where information is shared and exchanged among and between sellers, buyers and middlemen. It is argued that traders and middlemen have a competitive advantage over producers in negotiating for prices, because the former have access to prices in both primary and terminal markets, while the latter only have limited access to prices in the primary markets. This Research Brief highlights the situation regarding access to livestock marketing information by producers in pastoral markets of Kenya.

A short-term improved fallow system based on forage legumes for enhancing crop and livestock components of mixed farming systems was tested in the subhumid zone of West Africa. As part of the evaluation, the ability of 11 legume species (Centrosema macrocarpum, C. pubescens, Stylosanthes guianensis, Pueraria phaseoloides, Mucuna pruriens, Zornia glabra, Dioclea guianensis, Arachis pintoi, Aeschynomene histrix, Calopogonium caeruleum, Flemingia macrophylla) to accumulate biomass and nitrogen after dry season harvest of herbage was assessed at 2 sites in south-west Nigeria.

In a short-term improved fallow for crop-livestock farming systems of subhumid west Africa, rotational effects from a range of forage legumes on a subsequent maize crop were studied at two sites in south-west Nigeria. Nutrient (nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium) export from the fallows in the form of dry season herbage and subsequent nutrient accumulation in the green manure biomass were correlated with growth patterns of maize subsequently grown on the legume plots.