World Veterinary Day provides a great opportunity to celebrate the work of veterinarians and other veterinary service providers around the world. And GALVmed wants to take the opportunity to recognize the contributions of our many veterinary partners for their continued support to our mission of bringing animal health solutions closer to smallholder farmers in developing […]
Our professional lives are often so cramped with problems to solve, targets to reach and deadlines to meet that we may find it difficult to think. However, it is when we stop and make time to think that we increase the possibility to gain insights that will “move the needle”. At a recent “Private Sector […]
In July 2018, GALVmed’s partner Boehringer Ingelheim launched a new project known as The Last Mile Initiative. The project is designed to address weak distribution channels and help smallholder farmers in Africa increase their knowledge on disease prevention and treatment. While the Last Mile Initiative was initially launched in Kenya, there are plans to expand […]
In a new article posted on his Gates Notes blog, Bill Gates says rearing goats can greatly boost women’s empowerment, especially in rural areas where money earned from sale of goats stays in the women’s hands and gives them more control of their finances. This means that women not only improve their status within the […]
Lawrence Njane who lives in Kahuho village, Kiambu county in Kenya has been keeping dairy cattle for the last two decades after retiring from civil service. During this period, he has encountered various livestock diseases and has been dealing with them with the help of animal health experts in his locality. But something unique happened […]
Sixty-two-year-old Grace Kamau carries tattered, yellowed documents that she stores in a cupboard in her bedroom with care. These precious documents contain records about the health of her livestock. One of the documents shows when the local vet came to vaccinate her heifers against Foot and Mouth Disease. Another is for when her cow was […]
Smallholder farmers in Africa have limited or no access to high quality veterinary medicinal products due to weak distribution channels, low levels of awareness about animal diseases and how these can be prevented or treated. However, smart technologies can empower those hard-to-reach farmers by being part of the solution to leverage on data, surveillance and […]
According to FAO, livestock related food items account for about 30% of agriculture related GDP in Africa. This is with the exclusion of other contributions such as manure, draught power and transportation. When we consider that 75% of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) human population is involved either directly or indirectly in farming activities (FAO 2013;2014), it […]
The International Women’s Day is globally celebrated on March 8 and it is an important occasion to reflect on the challenges that women face every day around the world. This year’s #IWD theme was #ChooseToChallenge – for a challenged world is an alert world and from challenge comes change. At GALVmed, we believe in women’s […]
Livestock is an important entry point for promoting women’s empowerment. In the rural areas of the state of Bihar, India groups of local women, known as Pashu Sakhis, are trained to provide basic animal health care to their communities. In 2019, GALVmed and its partners, Veterinary Social Business division of Hester Biosciences Limited, and Bihar […]
When it comes to livestock, it has been documented that although women assume much of the responsibility for labour, they rarely derive economic and social gains from the livestock, especially from large animals such as cows, whose ownership is closely associated with men. But the narrative is slightly different for small animals such as goats, […]
COVID-19 has disrupted the way we do business. With travel restrictions in place in many countries and the need to protect each other against the disease, extension services for small-scale producers (SSPs) have been curtailed. Physical farmer trainings and awareness activities have reduced significantly or in some instances been stopped entirely. The GALVmed-Hester South Asia […]
Small ruminants are constantly threatened by diseases such as PPR and Sheep & Goat Pox (SGP). The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), estimates that 80% of the world’s 2 billion small ruminant population in Africa, the Middle East and Asia are threatened by PPR, while Sheep & Goat Pox has a mortality rate of […]
Millions of people around the world rely on small-scale agriculture and livestock farming for their livelihoods. For these families, livestock are assets which translate into vital essentials such as food, housing, education, or health assistance. Within this reality, outbreaks of livestock diseases can be detrimental to the livelihoods of these producers. We travelled to […]