A biweekly round-up of recent articles, blog postings and tweets about livestock, aid and other topics that may be of interest to ILRI staff, compiled by David Aronson.

The number of extremely poor people continues to rise in Sub-Saharan Africa, while falling rapidly in all other regions. The World Bank says that Africans comprised more than half of the extreme poor in 2015—but that by 2030, nearly 9 in 10 extremely poor people will live in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The US Department of Agriculture research budget is being slashed. Former administrators from both parties are concerned: “There’s a lot of science behind each mouthful. And behind the science is publicly funded research that’s sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.”

There’s a growing movement urging people to take the month of October off eating red meat. A Popular Science writer explains why: “If every person in America took turns stepping away from the burger for a month, we could keep about 460 million pounds of methane from entering our atmosphere.”

Can science build a better burger? “Animals happened to be the technology that was available 10,000 years ago” for making meat. “We stuck with that same technology, and it’s incredibly inefficient by any measure — and destructive.”

Vegans are calling for cruelty-free manure—and some are saying that’s BS.

If everyone became a vegetarian, would the world actually be better off? A round-up of the arguments concludes: “Eating right for the environment is certainly enough to make your head spin, but the moral of the story is reducing the amount of meat (especially red meat) and thinking twice about where your favorite foods come from and how they got there is a pretty good start.”

Despite a brutal slump in grain prices, Russian wheat farmers are booming—providing unaccustomed competition to Americans.

The isolated peoples who continue to practice hunter gatherer lifestyles are perhaps our best guide to how ancient people lived. They are notably generous and communitarian, say two psychologists, especially with food.

Are science writers undermining the public’s confidence in science?  There’s no way to return to the Ivory Tower, argues this science journalist, in Scientific American. “We need to make smart use of emotions, we need to leverage identity, and we need to be entertaining and make full use of storytelling devices.”

From ICARDA: “Traditional grazing-management practice makes an impact in southern Tunisia. Policymakers should protect them for sustainable management of rangeland resources.”

What do RCTs say about the latest trend in charitable aid—just giving people cash? It’s complicated.

Is everything you know about obesity wrong? A writer argues that, “For decades, the medical community has ignored mountains of evidence to wage a cruel and futile war on fat people, poisoning public perception and ruining millions of lives.”

Lawrence Haddad says that food safety threats are on the rise as food systems modernise but the capacity to control those risks lags behind. “It is clear that food safety is a necessary but not sufficient condition for healthy diets. But many people with my background do take it for granted. We should not and this is why.”

A top Cornell food researcher has had 13 studies retracted. Brian Wansink “committed academic misconduct,” and is leaving the university.

By clearing forests and raising animals, early farmers cranked up the global thermostat, possibly preventing another ice age, says one climate scientist. The amount of warming caused by farming prior to the Industrial Revolution is similar to the amount of warming caused by industrialization over the last two centuries.

Some 3,200 year-old cheese found in a broken jar in an Ancient Egyptian tomb is shedding light on the importance of dairy to the development of the human diet.

Let the (nomadic) games begin! The nomadic traditions of Central Asia are being revived, after decades of Soviet collectivization and globalization. One fun example: A version of rugby, played with the carcass of a headless goat.

Hundreds of herders and farmers have lost their lives this year as Nigeria’s wild northwest descends into worsening conflict.

The fertilizer hit the ventilator: Last month’s Hurricane Florence dispersed millions of gallons of pig feces in North Carolina, created vast lagoons of pig manure.