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From 25-31 May, Nairobi was host to a ‘Week on Agricultural Innovation in Africa.’ Here ILRI’s Jo Cadilhon reflects on the International workshop on agricultural innovation systems in Africa held as part of the week. The meeting was co-organized by FARA, ILRI, CCAFS, KARI, JOLISAA, the Kenyan Ministry of Agriculture, Wageningen University, Prolinnova, the World Bank, Australian Aid and CIRAD.

The first lesson I have learned from my participation in this meeting: we are not alone! Since I’ve joined ILRI nine months ago, I have been hearing a somewhat defensive discourse from colleagues involved in innovation platforms. The refrain goes something like this: ILRI has been at the forefront of promoting the use of innovation platforms to integrate complex social systems into agricultural research for development; if ILRI stops working on innovation platforms, it is a science beacon…

June 9, 2013

Rick Moran

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Worst flood in 500 years: Across many parts of central and eastern Europe, the scene looked eerily the same- cities and towns appeared as though they were in the middle of lakes and rivers.

June 10, 2013 – BONN, GERMANY – German authorities urged 15,000 more people to flee their homes in a city on the swollen Elbe River Sunday as central Europe’s worst floods in a decade also threatened Hungary after causing havoc in the Czech Republic and Austria. The river Danube reached a new record high in Budapest but the Hungarian capital’s mayor sought to ease concerns, saying water levels were stabilizing, although about 1,200 people were evacuated along the river. The deluge has also sparked massive emergency responses in Austria and Slovakia. A torrent of flood waters in Germany has turned vast areas into a brown water world, sparked a mass mobilization of emergency workers and caused…

“For a long time, primates stuck by the old restaurants–leaves and fruits–but by 3.5 million years ago, they started exploring new diet possibilities–tropical grasses and sedges–that grazing animals discovered a long time before, about 10 million years ago,” Cerling says, when African savanna began expanding.

“Tropical grasses provided a new set of restaurants. We see an increasing reliance on this resource by human ancestors, one that most primates still don’t use today.”

Grassy savannas and grassy woodlands in East Africa were widespread by 6 million to 7 million years ago. A major question is why human ancestors didn’t start exploiting savanna grasses until less than 4 million years ago.

National Science Foundation (NSF) News – See on Scoop.it – Africa and Beyond