Markets & Innovation Translation

The expansion of markets within developing countries and regions brings vital opportunities to increase income, trade and market access. This new area of inquiry, Markets and Innovation Translation, builds on livestock market innovations generated by Phase I research. Existing innovations will be improved and scaled up, and livestock markets will be emphasized as a research priority. Research areas include marketing and pricing of animal-source foods, market diagnostics, market-based solutions, and scaling of innovations.

Cross-Cutting Themes 

Local Capacity Development

LCD efforts in Phase 2 will focus on strengthening participating partners' organizational performance and institutional relationships through the application of collaborating, learning and adapting approaches. We combine previous efforts with collaboration and create social value through organizational and institutional strengthening. We apply Local Capacity Development systems-wide approaches to engage stakeholders to support and sustain changes in the research system.

Gender & Youth

Gender is a multi-dimensional issue in livestock systems, involving roles and relationships that may seem fixed and unchangeable. Women are often concentrated in the lower ends of the livestock value chains, frequently without access to the resources needed to be highly productive. Youth unemployment, underemployment, informal employment, and working poverty are concerns in virtually every part of the world, but especially in developing countries. The Gender and Youth cross-cutting theme seeks to increase equity and access across livestock value chains through research and capacity development. 

Enabling Environment

This theme facilitates research, capacity-building and participatory activities that support developing and implementing policies at any level that enhance the production, marketing and consumption of animal-source foods, especially among smallholders. Efforts focus on encouraging stakeholders’ dialogues, promoting research uptake and addressing institutional constraints that contribute to improving the availability of quality livestock inputs, services, and markets and introducing innovative solutions for risk management, disease surveillance, and food safety.

Future Livestock Systems & Resilience

This cross-cutting theme uses mechanistic models and analytical tools to examine how animal-source foods production systems may be affected by emerging challenges or improved by introducing innovations. It particularly examines livestock system responses to proposed interventions in the context of changes in climate, demographics, agriculture, markets, and infrastructure.

Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems is part of Feed the Future