Five diseases, one vaccine : a boost for emerging livestock farmers in South Africa

Livestock are essential to the economic, nutritional and social wellbeing of African farmers. Besides providing food, clothing and other products, they are a measure of wealth and social standing; they are used for barter, as lobola (bride price) at traditional weddings, and also as a ‘bank’, whereby animals can be sold to pay for emergency needs, such as funerals. Given the diverse uses of livestock and their socio-economic importance in farming communities, the loss of even a single animal has a significant, and sometimes crippling effect on a family

The silencing of race at Rhodes: ritual and anti-politics on a post-apartheid campus

Almost fifteen years after democracy, issues of 'race' still hold daily South African life firmly in its grip. Following calls from foremost South African theorists on 'race', such as Sarah Nuttall, this thesis moves beyond a study of crude 'racism', to the more complex consideration of 'race' as an embedded ideological social formation within the spatial context of Rhodes University. Using analytical concepts such as 'silencing' and 'ritual' the thesis weaves an understanding (1) of how particular powerful representations of institutional history are produced and made dominant, and (2) how seemingly innocuous performances of institutional identity are key to reproducing 'racial' dominance within Rhodes' student life. This ultimately manifests in the production of a deeply 'racialized' commonsensical understanding of the 'most' legitimate and authentic representation and ownership of institutional space. The thesis delves into dominant representations of Rhodes University'S history, considering how these help produce and reproduce 'racial' dominance through, for instance, the production of defining apolitical narratives of 'excellence'. Central to the dominant apolitical institutional history is the production of silences about the past. History, I argue, is less compelling in any revelation of 'what happened' than in illustrating the production of silences used to enable the appropriation of a particular history as the sole relevant history. The 'inheritors of the past', those who are able to lay authoritative and representative claim to it, it is argued, ultimately claim ownership over institutional space. I argue too, that the dominant practices and performances of daily institutional life (re)produce the institutional space as a space of 'racial' dominance. Ritualized performance of the dominant institutional identity produces ownership of institutional space through making some articulations of 'Rhodes identity' more acceptable, legitimate and authentic than others. The dominance of 'drinking culture' in Rhodes student life produces a particular 'racialized' institutional identity as most legitimate. 'Racial' dominance is instituted, consecrated and reproduced through the ritualistic performance of 'drinking culture', which ultimately produces a superior claim of ownership over the institutional space through the reiteration of racial domination that these performances of institutional identity powerfully symbolize

New livestock vaccines - a boost for emerging farmers in Africa

This work was carried out with the aid of a grant from Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), and with financial support from the Government of Canada, provided through Global Affairs Canada (GAC)Although commercial farmers generally make good use of livestock vaccines, emerging livestock farmers face major challenges in effective vaccine acquisition and use. Given the diverse uses of livestock and their socio-economic importance in farming communities, the loss of even a single animal has significant and sometimes crippling effects on a family. To ensure the relevance of newly developed vaccines to emerging farmers, this project uses an integrative and gender responsive approach, linking vaccine development with education, economics and social science. The researchers believe that the new vaccines will have the potential to control six important African livestock diseases

Gender, small-scale livestock farming and food security : policy implications in the South African context

This work was carried out with the aid of a grant from Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), and with financial support from the Government of Canada, provided through Global Affairs Canada (GAC)Drawing on insights from multiple studies, this policy brief addresses the importance of gender considerations for small-scale livestock farming communities relative to food security in the South African context. The brief examines some key elements of gender issues in relation to small-scale livestock farming, asks how some of these elements align with current policies and practices, and suggests a number of focused policy recommendations. Two thirds of the world’s 600 million poor livestock keepers are rural women. Within the international agricultural development agenda, women are increasingly identified as key to the eradication of global hunger