In the 1960s, a rapidly growing human population and the challenge to food security for all was a global concern. It was already recognised that simply increasing food production was not sufficient to meet that challenge because it was necessary to consider also the environmental impact of the growing human population and the expanding agricultural systems needed to feed it. It was against this background that, in the mid-1970s, the International Laboratory for Research in Animal Diseases (ILRAD) and the International Livestock Research Center for Africa (ILCA) were established in Nairobi and Addis Ababa, respectively, to address issues impacting on food security in the world’s poorer agricultural communities. ILRAD’s initial mandate was to find solutions to reducing the wastage in food production by animal diseases that caused death or reduced production in ruminant livestock. ILCA’s mandate was broader in that it addressed the challenges of introducing improved livestock production systems into a wide range of environmental and social situations.
