ILRI director general Jimmy Smith (left) introduces IFAD president Kanayo Nwanze to guests at the ILRI@40 conference in Addis Ababa on 6 Nov 2014; Kanayo gave the keynote address at ILRI’s conference (photo credit: ILRI/Susan MacMillan).

Jimmy Smith, director general of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), provided a vision of what he thinks livestock production in the developing world will look like in 2054, 40 years from now. He presented this on the first of a two-day conference being held this week (6–7 Nov 2014) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to mark the 40-year anniversary of ILRI.

If much of the first day’s conference discussions looked back and took stock of where livestock research for development is today, Smith’s summary reflections at the close of the first day set the scene for discussions on the second day (today), which are focusing on how the fast-evolving developing-world livestock sector will change…