Biometric skills in developing countries are inadequate to support the changing priorities of agricultural research with the consequence that the quality of research aimed at increasing food security and alleviating poverty is often deficient because it lacks good statistical design" (CTA, 1997).

As the share of small ruminant meat, especially sheep, in the demand and consumption of meat in general grows, information about consumer expenditure behaviour and demand parameters for live sheep will be valuable for several interest groups in the sheep industry. Using the Heckman two-stage approach, this study shows that sheep prices and household income, as well as socio-demographic factors, including household size and composition, significantly affect the likelihood of buying live sheep and expenditures on live sheep.

The study of gender issues in agricultural production has become an important subject of inquiry, even since questions were raised on whether women and men benefited equally from economic development. The focus of the debate and empirical research has primarily been on the role of women in crop production to the virtual exclusion of the role of gender (women, men and children) in livestock farming.

This annual report takes as its theme the central challenge facing the institute and its partners at the start of the new millennium: making the livestock revolution work for the poor. It is a companion report to the institutes new strategic plan, which takes the revolution as its basis in determining how ILRI's programme should evolve in the first decade of the 21st century. The report begins and ends on a farm in central Ethiopia, whose mixed crop-livestock producers are just beginning to participate in the expanding dairy market of the country's capital, Addis Ababa.

This document is divided in four parts. The first part, external influences shaping ILRI's strategy, discusses the role of livestock in poverty alleviation, food and nutritional security, the environment and human health, livestock demand and production trends, productivity challenge, evolution of livestock systems, trends in science and information technologies and stakeholders for international livestock research. The second part highlights rationale for strategic choices while the third part outlines the strategic choices.

The use of participatory tools and methods has increased dramatically in

natural resource management (NRM) over the past decade, largely because of

the recognition that sustainable NRM cannot be achieved without involving the

individuals and communities who make decisions about how resources are

used. Participation of resource users and other stakeholders is important not

only in the management of resources, but also in research oriented toward the

generation of information and innovations that shape how resources are

This issue of Caravan chronicles ICARDA’s efforts in developing a research strategy and a need-based research program for the CAC region. In doing so, ICARDA played a major role in bringing together all partners, most importantly donors. The article on page 8 traces the history of this effort and provides an overview of the current status of collaboration.

Desde 1988 el sector ejidatario mexicano se ha visto afectado
por una serie de cambios de política y perturbaciones exógenas
que han puesto en tela de juicio la viabilidad agrícola del
sector en su conjunto. Los cambios --liberalización del comercio,
privatización, reducción de los subsidios, eliminación
de los controles de precios, perturbaciones macroeconómicas,
devaluación y grandes reformas del marco legal que rige el
uso de la tierra en los ejidos-- han llevado a un reordenamiento

Since 1988 the ejido sector in Mexico has been buffeted by a series of policy changes and exogenous shocks that have brought into question the agricultural viability of the sector as a whole. These changes -trade liberalization, privatization, falling subsidies, the abolition of price controls, macroeconomic shocks, devaluation and momentous changes in the legal framework governing land use in the ejido- have led to a radical reordering of the policy framework and incentive structure under which the farmers of these communal lands operate.