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EAHMI Philippines conducts 4^th Steering Committee Meeting

Group Photo taken during the EAHMI Philippines 4^th Steering Committee Meeting on 18 April 2013 at Quezon City . 

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FAO animal flu reference center set up in N China

Source: (Xinhua) People's Daily Online 08:53, March 05, 2013
HARBIN, March 4 (Xinhua) -- The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations on Monday designated an animal influenza lab in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province as a reference center for animal influenza.
The Animal Influenza Laboratory, which belongs to the Harbin Veterinary Research
Institute (HVRI) of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, is located in the provincial capital of Harbin.
The center is the first FAO-recognized reference center in China and the second in the world after the Federal Research Institute for Animal Health, which is operated by the Friedrich Loeffer Institute of Germany.

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CPF subsidiaries investing Bt250m in Laos, Cambodia

CP Laos and CP Cambodia are investing a combined Bt250 million to setup a new silo for maize in Cambodia and a new feed-meal plant in Laos to strengthen CPF's integrated agricultural-industrial business as theAsean Economic Community (AEC) approaches.

The investment will involve the purchase of a maize silo and drying plant in Cambodia and the establishment of a new feed-mill plant in Champasak province, southwestern Laos.

The company has also invested further in its three core businesses of feed production, farming and food processing in the two countries. Its businesses there are focused on the efficient development of thesupply chain to access quality raw materials.

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Livestock and Food Security

"The relationship between livestock and food security is often portrayed by the media in emotional terms such as “Go vegetarian to save the planet”. Yet the relationship is not so simple. There are positive impacts of livestock on “the planet,” not the least in terms of the economy, with trade in live animals and animal products contributing 40% of the global value of agricultural output (FAO, 2009), but also in terms of the 1 billion poor people in Africa and Asia who depend on livestock for their livelihoods. The challenge is that there are also negative impacts of livestock, and they tend to be good headline grabbers!"

Read more about this important subject in the January 2013 special issue of Animal Frontiers, dedicated to livestock and food security: http://www.animalfrontiers.org/content/current

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Third secondee from Lao PDR completes Secondment Programme

A Project Officer of the Northern Region Sustainable Livelihood through Livestock Development Project (NRSLLDP) in Lao PDR, Dr. Moua Yang has completed his Secondment Program in the Environmental Animal Health Management Initiative Regional base in the Philippines on 28 January to 8 February 2013.

M. Yang was the third secondee to undergo Geographic Information System (GIS) mentoring which is part of the EAHMI project activities to enhance collaborations, knowledge and information sharing among project partners. The secondment focused on various strategies and techniques of data management in spreadsheets, GPS use and GIS analyses that are applicable in animal production and health context. 

During his two-week stay at the EAHMI Regional base, he worked on his project datasets to facilitate better appreciation and understanding of the different topics on data cleaning and manipulations, data conversions and GIS mapping using Quantum GIS. Various maps were produced such as the NRSLLD Project locations, animal population and vaccination distributions.