For the November 2011 ‘liveSTOCK Exchange’ event at ILRI, Okeyo Mwai, livestock geneticist, reflects on ILRI’s research over the past decade on the animal genetic resources of the developing world and future directions.

Watch the 2-minute interview with Okeyo Mwai.

What we achieved in the last decade
With the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and many other partners, local as well as international, we achieved:

> Greater public understanding of the value of Africa’s indigenous livestock genetic resources through assessments and articulations of their global ‘meltdown’ in recent decades and the causes for this.

> Greater understanding by policymakers that the best way to conserve this important ‘barnyard diversity’ is to make greater use of native breeds, populations and genes on farms—and that implies providing the farmers both with the animal stock and with incentives for maintaining them.

> Greater scientific understanding of the rich storehouse of…