The Livestock and Fish program director, Tom Randolph recently visited Nicaragua and Colombia. In Colombia he met colleagues in the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), a partner centre for the program, which leads forages research within the program’s feeds platform as well as the dual-purpose cattle value chain activities in Nicaragua.

In Nicaragua, Randolph together with the CIAT team working on the value chain held meetings with Edwin Perez, a former ILRI employee, who is leading a new Technoserve dairy development project in the central-northern part of the country and José Antonio Rivera, a director at a private sector dairy product maker, Eskimo, which is also involved in dairy development actions. In addition, field visits to a dairy cooperative, a dairy farmer and a cheese maker were held. These meetings and field visits were aimed at exploring potential partnership areas and additional strategic research opportunities.

The need…