Customers at a milk bar in Ndumbuini in Kabete, Nairobi  (photo credit: ILRI/Paul Karaimu).

Mark Tran in the Guardian‘s Poverty Matters Blog warns us this week not to keep chickens under our beds. On the other hand, he infers, chicken bought on the street in poor countries may be safer to eat than that from the supermarket. Tran is reporting on a new in-depth study by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) of livestock keeping in urban areas of Nigeria and Kenya. That study found that while living among animals in crowded urban environments does have risks for human health, ‘banning urban livestock or getting rid of markets can often do more harm than good’.

‘As more people leave the countryside for the city in the developing world, many continue to rely on agriculture for a living’, Tran reports.’ At least 800 million people in cities in poor countries…