This book is the first to offer an introduction to participatory research for livestock development. Despite the attention paid to participatory research methodologies in other areas of agricultural development, participatory livestock work has been relatively neglected despite the evident relevance of and demand for such approaches. This book will bring livestock researchers and practitioners up to date with the latest and best practice in participatory research. Participatory Livestock Research will help researchers and practitioners to overcome the potential difficulties associated with participatory livestock research. The book shows how a participatory approach to technology development can be successful. It also shows how to undertake needs assessment using participatory approaches, and how to avoid the problems associated with on-farm livestock experiments. Participatory Livestock Research is essential reading for all those involved in livestock research and will be also be of interest to workers and researchers interested in wider agricultural development issues in universities, national agricultural research systems and NGOs, and extension workers and practitioners in agricultural service agencies.

Agricultural development research aims to generate new knowledge or to retrieve and apply existing forms of knowledge in ways that can be used to improve the welfare of people who are living in poverty or are otherwise excluded, for instance by gender-based discrimination. Its effective application therefore requires ongoing dialogue with and the strong engagement of men and women from poor marginal farming communities. This book discusses opportunities afforded by effective knowledge pathways linking researchers and farmers, underpinned by participatory research and gender analysis. It sets out practices and debates in gender-sensitive participatory research and technology development, concentrating on the empirical issues of implementation, impact assessment, and institutionalisation of approaches for the wider development and research community. It includes six full-length chapters and eight brief practical notes and is enhanced by an annotated resources list of relevant publications, organisations, and websites adding to the portfolio of approaches and tools discussed by the contributors. Most of the 33 contributing authors work in the specialised agencies that form part of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). This book was published as a special issue of Development in Practice.

Toward a new institutional model of farmer participation in research on natural resource management and germplasm improvement; Developing a natural resource management technology for a specific agroenvironment: Mucuna-maize rotation on the hillsides of northern honduras; Land use systems and dynamics in Pucallpa, Peru; Strategic systems research for the Latin American Savannas; Developing improved pasture systems for forest margins; Adapting participatory research methods for developing integrated crop management for cassava-based systems Northeast Brazil; Soil conservation strategies that take into account farmer perspectives; Developing sustainable cassava production systems with farmers in Asia; Developing forage tecnologies with smallholders in East Kalimantan, Indonesia; Farmer's independent experimentation with green manure and/or cover crops: A component of participatory research for improving Ugandan Farming Systems; Designing sustainable, commercial, farmer seed production systems in Africa: Case studies From Uganda; Institucional Innovation as an entry for system-level technological change; Participatory sysems research toward the future.

This compendium reproduces results from several, independent research projects undertaken at the Livestock Policy Analysis Programme (LPAP) of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. This reproduction brings together separate pieces of research that relate to the same goals, namely, market expansion, food security, poverty alleviation and hunger prevention. It is to showcase the power of Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods, particularly Gibbs sampling, in providing direct answers to policy questions. It is hoped that the empirical research showcased in this compendium will spur other researchers to apply MCMC methods and the Bayesian paradigm to the heterogeneous research projects and policy questions that employed research encounters in less developed regions.

This revolution presents new and expanding market opportunities for smallholder livestock producers.

Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral)--University of Hohenheim, 2008.