LEARN Fellowships announced

The New Zealand Government is to offer up to nine scholarships for scientists from developing countries working in animal greenhouse gas emissions research to work in New Zealand, Acting Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor said today.

Mr O’Connor said that in November last year, New Zealand set up an international research network entitled the ‘Livestock Emissions & Abatement Research Network’ (LEARN).  It is an international research network focused upon improving the understanding of greenhouse gas emissions from livestock agriculture.

 The Andean region has seen significant growth in industrial poultry and pig production around its urban centers. However, many livestock products, including milk and dairy products, small-ruminant meat and camelid fiber, continue to be supplied predominantly by small-scale producers, and livestock remain central to the livelihoods of a large portion of the rural poor living in the higher altitudes unsuitable for sustained crop production. Environmental change pose a very significant threat to this production systems as the Andes regions has been identified as one of the riskiest worldwide to this changes. Both, interventions that increase resilience to the adverse impacts of climate change of this vulnerable systems as well as the effects of livestock in the Andes to global warming require better understanding in order to set up policy strategies and practical advise. Indirect evidence is available that it is ‘most likely’ to be encounter extremely high emissions of GHG (CH4) because of poor product output and grasslands of poor condition (quality and quantity of offered forages + seasonality). This will be reviewed in this workshop oriented to identify and priorize possible research and intervention.activities.