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We have a close connection with the Global Food Systems Institute at the University of Florida. After several successful years of our Livestock Systems Innovation Lab, this umbrella organization was created to expand the university's research to encompass all food systems.

About Us

Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems

OVERVIEW

Created by Feed the Future, the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems develops long-term research and capacity-development efforts, primarily through multi-disciplinary, integrated, and competitively-funded applied research.

As one of more than 20 Feed the Future Innovation Labs, the Livestock Systems Innovation Lab is led by the University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS), in partnership with the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). The Livestock Systems Innovation Lab is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), from 2015-2020, and by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, from 2017-2022.

The Livestock Systems Innovation Lab is led by a Management Entity, with Regional Coordinators based in each target region or country, as well as Area of Inquiry Team Leaders and Cross-Cutting Specialists at the University of Florida. The Management Entity works with a University of Florida-based Internal Advisory Committee, and an External Advisory Board.

The Livestock Systems Innovation Lab has provided funding for nearly 50 projects, which use innovative approaches addressing country-specific research priorities identified in a participatory manner with national stakeholders. They also integrate human and institutional capacity development (HICD), gender and human health and nutrition dimensions.

OBJECTIVES

The objectives of the Livestock Systems Innovation Lab are to sustainably improve livestock productivity and marketing and animal-source food consumption using appropriate improved technologies, capacity development, and policies, in order to improve the nutrition, health, incomes and livelihoods of vulnerable people.

Additional objectives include increasing the resilience of vulnerable populations; reducing the environmental impact of livestock systems; and advancing the understanding of evolving livestock systems and their roles in food security, nutrition, and health.

More Information

_{This work was funded in whole or part by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Bureau for Food Security under Agreement # AID-OAA-L-15-00003 as part of Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems. Additional funding was received from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed here are those of the authors alone.}