Livestock production and animal health

Our experts also develop and transfer veterinary products. They help countries – through their animal health agencies – to manage sanitary constraints and prevent disease emergence at the interface between humans and domestic and wild animal, in line with the multi-sectorial One Health approach.

Animal production and aquaculture

Optimizing the supply chain, from production to processing

How can we make milk collection networks more dynamic, to integrate farmers into the market economy? In tropical and Mediterranean regions, the livestock production sector is made up of scattered small-scale farmers, some of whom practice seasonal transhumance, which makes optimum use of pastoral territories. Our experts work with mini-dairies and industrial dairies to develop innovative approaches aimed at building the local and regional markets of the future. These R&D partnerships are intended to support the sustainable development of pastoral and agro-pastoral territories.

Improving environmental and nutritional impact

For the meat value chain

Livestock farming generates lower greenhouse gas emissions when herds follow grazing tracks within a suitable environment. Rich fodder and establishing ecosystem services between agricultural land and rangelands also improve meat and milk quality and the condition of the agricultural land.  We support such drives to build ecosystem services.

For the aquaculture sector

How can we boost fish growth and resilience? We are making use of local biodiversity and alternative food resources, to build efficient, more resilient production systems. We help fish farmers develop innovative strategies that satisfy both their production targets and the need for more sustainable production systems centring on agroecology.

Animal health and the One Health approach

CIRAD is a reference laboratory listed by the European Union, OIE and FAO, and develops solutions for the animal health sector, via a One Health approach. We are a reference for various diseases:

• contagious bovine peripneumonia,
• contagious caprine pleuropneumonia,
• cowdriosis, peste des petits ruminants,
• rinderpest, and diseases caused by trypanosomatids (animal and human trypanosomoses, leishmaniosis).

Cirad’Innov thus provides socioeconomic players in the health sector and local authorities with solutions and expertise:

• We develop and disseminate diagnosis supplies and vaccines , directly or in partnership with specialist laboratories
• By identifying insects that carry diseases (trypanosomes) and assessing population densities, we develop appropriate control methods, including trapping systems, in collaboration with firms capable of disseminating them
• We identify curative treatments for humans and animals, working with health services and laboratories
• Through our insectarium, we can supply laboratories with tsetse fly pupae and assess the efficacy of chemical or biological compounds, with a view to developing new drugs. Several web-based and bioinformatics tools can be used to capitalize and rationalize data
• Lastly, in association with veterinary and human health and environment institutes, laboratories and local health agencies and in collaboration with our partners on the ground, we use decision support tools to build effective, economical strategies to monitor and control epidemics and emerging disease risks at the human-animal interface.