ILRI management and board visit a dairy farming community in Haryana, India

The beginning of November saw me back in India for the first time since I left and moved to Addis. I was in Delhi for the first meeting of the ILRI Board of Trustees to be held outside Nairobi or Addis.  The meeting included a visit to the National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI), one of our partners in India and one of the villages where with NDRI and ILRI are working to improve cereal residue based feeding systems. We had a full day joint meeting with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research and representatives of the livestock sector in India to explore areas for stronger collaboration.  It was great to see again my friends and colleagues from Delhi and the other ILRI Offices in India as well as to meet so many of our Indian partners.  Following the Board Meeting, Jimmy and I traveled to Hyderabad to meet the ILRI staff based at ICRISAT and meet ICRISAT colleagues and partners, including a meeting with the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh to discuss research on smallholder dairy value chains as part of the Livestock and Fish CRP.

During the last week of November we had a small team visiting us to review the activities of the Forage Genebank.  This is part of a rolling series of reviews of all the CGIAR genebanks, organised by the Global Crop Diversity Trust (GCDT), which manages the CRP on Genetic Diversity.

The review team comprised Stephanie Greene (Geneticist/Curator, USDA Temperate Forage Legume Conservation and Research Unit), Simon Linington (Head of Management Support, Millennium Seed Bank, UK) Charlotte Lusty (GCDT Scientist),  Anne Clyne (GCDT Financial Manager).

The Team spent time reviewing the role of the genebank in ILRI’s research program, studied in detail the operation of the genebank, including a visit to Debre Zeit, and reviewed the management arrangements.  The Team was very enthusiastic about the role that the genebank plays and recognised the potential to contribute to the CRPs.  We await the draft report, but the feedback, while identifying some areas where we can improve our performance, was very encouraging and will help us improve both effectiveness and focus our attention on making better use of the material.  I want to thank Alexandra and all the staff who spent time with the Team and gave such a positive impression.

This month has been challenging in respect of our water supply on campus.  The main supply line was cut, leaving us short of water and eventually the secondary supply line also failed. Following negotiations with the authorities a new supply line was connected and water restored.  However the incident has highlighted how exposed we are to interruptions in supply.  We also have an aging infrastructure so we will be undertaking a comprehensive program of improvements, including dealing with old, leaky pipes, investing in a large scale storage facility, and exploring the feasibility of sinking a bore well to back up the municipal supply. In addition we need to see if it is cost effective to invest in water harvesting and use such water for gardens etc.  I want to thank the Engineering Team who worked so hard under difficult circumstances to restore our water supply.