The FAO elearning Academy has released a NEW online course on “Estimating methane emissions from enteric fermentation using Tier 2 method”. The course is free of charge and aims to provide practical guidance for data collection and emissions estimation from livestock enteric fermentation, using the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s Tier 2 method.
Learn more here: https://elearning.fao.org/course/view.php?id=893
Closing date: 20 December 2022
Location: Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
The West African Science Service Centre on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL) seeks to recruit a Post-Doctoral Scientist as Social Learning and Implementation Facilitator at its Competence Centre in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. The candidate will be required to service WASCAL by providing support to the project INTERFACES (Supporting Pathways to Sustainable Land Management in Africa), funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research BMBF under the guidance of the local project coordination team at WASCAL.
The project supports and coordinates outreach activities for four Research and Development (R&D) projects working on sustainable land management in Sub-Sahara Africa funded under the umbrella of
BMBF’s Strategy, “Research for Sustainability”. INTERFACES will support collective processes, that enable and contribute to gender-responsive transformative change between all relevant stakeholders, such as the R&D projects, other scientists, policy-makers, and practitioners in Africa. The position is responsible to engage with the relevant stakeholders in Africa in collective and social learning processes and contribute to the implementation of research results. It involves a strong cooperation with the partners of INTERFACES and the other R&D projects.
The chosen candidate will work with a multidisciplinary team of experts from different African and German institutions to produce and disseminate the results of the INTERFACES project to all stakeholders in Africa.
For further information, click HERE.
The 2022 meeting of the Livestock Research Group was held over three online sessions on 18 – 20 October.
The meeting was attended by participants from 38 countries and five partner organisations. The meeting report and recordings of the online sessions are now available for download HERE.
Closing date: 12 December 2022
Location: University of Eldoret (Kenya)
The University of Eldoret (Kenya) is offering three doctoral research fellowships. The fellowships are attached to an international project which aims to improve the design and management of rural water pans, to increase the sustainability, climate resilience and quality of water supplied to rural communities in Tanzania and Kenya. In keeping with the project’s focus, the doctoral candidates are expected to conduct research and engage in knowledge sharing and joint learning with communities and decision makers at the national and regional levels in Africa.
Learn more about the positions and how to apply HERE.
Closing date: 4 December 2022
Location: Palmerston North, New Zealand
AgResearch is offering an exciting opportunity to join their world-leading, award-winning Rumen Microbiology team as a Senior Scientist, and help their research on reducing biogenic greenhouse gas emissions in climate change mitigation. Learn more & apply HERE.
Location: ETH Zurich, Switzerland
The Niu Lab at ETH Zurich is seeking two motivated, team-oriented individuals with a strong interest in the interface of basic and applied research in agricultural and animal nutrition sciences to enhance understanding of nutrient utilization efficiency and improve the sustainability of livestock systems.
The potential research topics include:
- Investigate dietary strategies to mitigate environmental impacts (GHG emissions and N excretions) of dairy cattle
- Understand the gut microbial composition of dairy cattle in response to dietary changes
- Assess the impact of climate changes on dairy cattle
- Integrate precision dairy farming technologies and data analysis, mathematical and statistical modelling and artificial intelligence to improve the health and welfare of dairy cattle
Learn more and apply online HERE.
A recording of the GRA CSA side event, which took place during the Africa Science and Partnership for Agriculture Conference (SPAC) in September 2022 in Accra, Ghana, co-hosted by NZAGRC and ILRI, is now available.
The side event titled “Gaining Ground: A Workshop to Strengthen collaborations to advance Climate-Smart Agriculture” sought to showcase science-based practices that illustrate pathways to climate-smart, low-emission agricultural development and to identify steps needed to improve global and regional collaboration for long-term climate-smart agriculture (CSA) transformation.
Participants reported the training and experience exchanges were very useful for improving the design of CSA practices. Insights emerged related to illustrating adaptation and mitigation co-benefits, enhancing collaboration between research institutions and governments, scaling viable CSA technologies, efficient communication channels, robust data collection/information management systems, and that local adoption requires demonstrating the efficacy of CSA interventions in each national context.
Speakers at the side event included:
- Dr Claudia Arndt, Senior Scientist and Co-leader, Mazingira Centre ILRI, Kenya
- Dr Ackim Mwape, Africa Programme Lead NZAGRC, New Zealand
- Dr Wilhelmina Quaye, Director CSIR-Science and Technology Policy Research Institute, Ghana
- Dr Kofi Konadu Boateng, Program Associate for Agriculture, Global Methane Hub (GMH)
Closing date: 31 December 2022
FAO are looking for a part-time consultant, who will support development of technical capacity in seven SEC countries to apply the Livestock Environmental Assessment Partnership’s (LEAP) Guidelines for quantification of the impact of livestock on biodiversity.
All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply.
Further details about the role and how to apply can be found HERE.
A recording of the recent CLIFF-GRADS event, which took place in the Food and Agriculture Pavilion at the UN Climate Change Conference 2022 (COP27), co-hosted by CGIAR, FAO and The Rockefeller Foundation, is now available to view.
About the event: The Climate, Food and Farming, Global Research Alliance Development Scholarships Programme (CLIFF-GRADS) offers exciting opportunities for early career scientists from low- and middle-income countries to learn to conduct applied research in agricultural greenhouse gas emission quantification and mitigation. In this session, some of these young scientists will share how the experience they acquired through this program has boosted their careers.
Speakers
- Harry Clark (Acting Special Representative, GRA) – Moderator
- Titis Apdini (Joint Programming Officer, Wageningen University and Research) – CLIFF-GRADS alumna
- Kofi Boateng (Agriculture Program Associate, Global Methane Hub) – CLIFF-GRADS alumnus
- Charles Spillane (Established Professor (Chair) of Plant Science and Director of the Ryan Institute for Sustainable Development at the University of Galway, Ireland) – CLIFF-GRADS Administration
We are excited to announce that 48 PhD candidates from low- and middle-income countries will receive scholarships in Round 5 of the Climate, Food and Farming – Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases Development Scholarships programme (CLIFF-GRADS).
The Round 5 CLIFF-GRADS fellows come from 18 countries from Asia, Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean. For six months starting early 2023, they will undertake applied research on quantifying and mitigating agriculture greenhouse gas emissions at 29 institutes in a total of 19 countries.
The full list of awardees, their research projects and the 29 host institutes that they will be hosted by can be found below.
CLIFF-GRADS offers short research visits of up to 6 months providing opportunities for early-career scientists to gain exposure to equipment, software and expertise that they would not otherwise have access to at their home institute.
During their research visit CLIFF-GRADS recipients will research rumen microbiology, rice production, soil emissions, and pasture management, among other topics.
We’d especially like to acknowledge the support of fellow GRA country members and international partners, particularly Mitigate+: Research for Low Emissions Food Systems (Mitigate+) for supporting these technical training opportunities for students.
The Round 5 awardees are:
Listed by Name, Nationality, Host Organisation and Project Topic
| Abasi Ryan Giggs Kigozi Uganda INIA Remehue, Osorno Chile Effects of supplementation with wheat bran on methane production and nitrogen use efficiency of dairy cows fed grass diets (#20) |
| Abubakar Gero Nigeria Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina, Peru Evaluation of promising agro-industrial by-products to increase dairy production and reduce Enteric Methane Emission of cattle in the Peruvian Amazon Region (#21) |
| Adnan Arshad Pakistan Department of Industry, Tourism and Trade of the Northern Territory Government, Australia Developing an Intelligent Greenhouse Management System to Monitor the Greenhouse Gas Emissions (#55) |
| Amsalu Tilahun Fite Ethiopia Jimma University, Ethiopia Long-term effect of biochar-based soil amendments on greenhouse gas emissions in low-input cropping systems (#1) |
| Anusha B S. India The James Hutton Institute, Scotland Evaluating the potential of Community Natural Farming in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, food security and poverty alienation in India (#50) |
| Ashenafi Ali Abduljelil Ethiopia ISRIC – World Soil Information, Wageningen Netherlands Generating quality-assessed soil information to support climate-smart agriculture in Ethiopia (#4) |
| Bárbara Yaislyn Ortíz Hurtado Cuba Spanish Research Council, Spain Testing feed additives to reduce enteric methane emissions (#22) |
| Caleb Sagwa Barasa Kenya INTA, EEA Cesáreo Naredo, Argentina Impacts of the inclusion of bioactive compounds into the diet of cattle on the emission of GHGs from depositions (#34) |
| Charleni Crisóstomo Brazil INTA, EEA Manfredi, Argentina In vitro assessment of ideal level of inclusion of by-products in beef cattle diets for decreasing methane emissions and enhance ruminal N metabolism (#42) |
| Codjo Mawunou Esteban Hénoc Medenou Benin International Livestock Research Institute, Kenya Enhancing assessment of cattle GHG emissions in African agro-pastoral systems: making use of high-frequency survey data collection (#32) |
| Coffi Leonce Geoffroy Sossa Benin Soil and Water Conservation Research Unit, USA Using CQESTR Model to Predict Soil Organic Carbon Changes and CO2 Emissions (#5) |
| Comlan René Yaovi Benin Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, Ethiopia Modelling and predicting SOC sequestration potentials of SLMP watersheds in Ethiopia (#60) |
| Dargo Kebede Alemie Ethiopia International Livestock Research Institute, Kenya Soil respiration, microbial biomass, and plant root growth to assess belowground carbon cycling in a semi-arid Kenyan rangeland (#57) |
| Demissie Dawana Keche Ethiopia International Livestock Research Institute, Kenya Optimizing anaerobic digestion process for climate mitigation, enhanced energy and nutrient recovery from cattle manure (#30) |
| Emmanuella-Doeko’os Zachariah Awang Nigeria INTA Balcarce, Buenos Aires, Argentina Dairy manure application to pecan in CICALS as a strategy to mitigate greenhouse gases emissions and enhance carbon sequestration (#27) |
| Escain Kiwonde Tanzania Rothamsted Research Okehampton Devon, UK Greenhouse gas emissions associated with conservation agriculture from UK cropland using the DENitrification incubation system (DENIS) (#15) |
| Ezequiel Jesús Teran Argentina UiT, The Arctic University of Norway, Norway Effects of disturbance on CH4 uptake capacity and physiology of atmospheric CH4 oxidizing bacteria (#2) |
| Flavia Olguin Argentina INIA-CSIC, Spain Influence of the soil sampling protocol in the total Soil Carbon Stock at regional level (#6) |
| Gérard Xavier Djidjoho Gbenou Benin INRAE, Centre ARA-Theix, France Exploring the role of methylotrophic methanogenesis in the rumen (#23) |
| Gonfa Kewessa Hunde Ethiopia Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, Ethiopia Evaluating the potentials of CSA Practices for Mitigating Soil Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Agricultural Land in Central Highland of Ethiopia (#8) |
| Issaka Abdou Razakou Kiribou* Burkina Faso University of Costa Rica Modeling water use efficiency and atmospheric carbon uptake in a coffee plantation (#48) *Reallocated to a Round 6 project in 2023-2024. For updated project information, go to R6 announcement. |
| Iván Filip Argentina Algarve University, Portugal Economics of GHG mitigation at farm level of cattle production systems in Portugal (#35) |
| Karen Debora Ponieman Argentina Bangor University, UK The effect of circularity in agriculture on greenhouse gas emissions (#51) |
| Lívia Chagas de Lima Brazil INTA, Argentina Modelling Beef Cattle Production Systems in Argentinian Pampas: an Approach for Estimating Marginal Abatement Cost Curves (#33) |
| Ludy Keino Kenya International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Kenya Testing manure management interventions for their potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and nutrient leaching losses in smallholder systems (#58) |
| M’koumfida Bagbohouna Togo International Rice Research Institute, Vietnam Transforming to low-emission food systems through community-led co-design and experimental learning in Vietnam (#52) |
| Malede Atanaw Ethiopia Ruminants Research Group, Switzerland Measuring housing-based emissions under natural ventilation using the tracer ratio method when cows are part-time grazing (#41) |
| Mercedes Busto Argentina Soil and Water Conservation Research Unit, USA Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Intercropped Legumes in Winter Wheat under Dryland Cropping Systems (#12) |
| Monday Usman Nigeria Ministry of Agriculture & Land Reclamation, Egypt Assessment of greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural sources in order to plan for the needs of a low carbon economy at the local level (#54) |
| Muhammed Nurye Gebeyehu Ethiopia INIA La Estanzuela, Uruguay Mitigation of GHG livestock emissions under grazing conditions over improved native grasslands with high tannin legumes (#44) |
| Nadia Testani Argentina Natural Resources Institute, Finland Developing a digital twin of mixed cropping livestock systems (#53) |
| Ndifreke Stanislaus Udo Nigeria INTA, Balcarce Evaluating the application of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi to reduce N2O emissions (#11) |
| Nut Nareth Cambodia University of Costa Rica Costa Rican rainfed rice system adapted to a transplant phase and its effect on soil carbon and on N2O sources. (#45) |
| Nnaemeka Esiobu Nigeria International Rice Research Institute, Viet Nam Greenhouse Gas measurements in a field experiment evaluating the effect of different management practices on rice varieties in the Philippines (#47) |
| Pamela Madududu Zimbabwe Wageningen Livestock research, Netherlands Evaluating integral sustainability of livestock and arable farms in the EU ClieNFarms project (#61) |
| Paul Mwangi Kenya Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria, Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Manfredi, Argentina Enteric methane emissions, nitrogen excretion and animal performance when including local by-products in beef steers grazing alfalfa (#28) |
| Reagan Anguie Bol Lewis South Sudan Thünen Institute, Germany Economics of GHG mitigation at farm level of cattle production systems (#36) |
| Rita Sedem Yaa Goka Ghana ETH Zurich, Switzerland Biophysical performance of dynamic agroforestry vs. traditional cultivation systems in cocoa production in Ghana (#49) |
| Rosemery dos Santos Cape Verde IFAPA Camino de Purchil, Spain Integrating cost-effective mitigation strategies to increase soil organic carbon (#17) |
| Rotimi Ibitoye Nigeria CIFICEN (UNCPBA-CICPBA-CONICET), Argentina Soil use effect on GHG fluxes (#13) |
| Rumbidzai Winnet Nyawasha Zimbabwe Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, Ethiopia Attributing the SOC change and dynamics to land use change, land management and climate change in Ethiopia (#10) |
| Stallone Soares Sao Tome and Principe CEBAS-CSIC, Spain SOC stabilization mechanisms and their regulation factors under different climate-smart agricultural practices and Mediterranean conditions (#9) |
| Sylvia Imbuhila Buleti Kenya Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), Kenya Measuring the contribution of push-pull technology to climate change mitigation (#56) |
| Tegegn Fantahun Chernet Ethiopia International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Kenya Assessing biogas performance, socio-economic and environmental impacts of farm-scale biogas plants digesting manure in Ethiopia and Kenya (#29) |
| Temilade Adegbite Nigeria Instituto de Investigaciones Agropecuarias, Centro Regional de Investigación Remehue, Chile Development of nitrous oxide emission factors associated to the use of foliar nanoformulations (#14) |
| Thi Huong Giang Nguyen Vietnam AgResearch, New Zealand Circularity and sustainability evaluation of integrated crop-ruminant livestock systems through farm modelling (#40) |
| Tobi Akinropo Nigeria INRAe-UMRH, France Regional databases to evaluate goodness of fit of GHG prediction models (#25) |
| Wondimagegne Bekele Ethiopia National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA), Argentina Evaluating strategies for ruminant methane abatement of Argentina livestock systems. (#26) |
Keep an eye out for further information about the awardees coming soon.
See HERE for the Mitigate+ official media release.
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About CLIFF-GRADS: CLIFF-GRADS is a joint initiative of the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases (GRA) and the CGIAR Initiative on Low-Emission Food Systems, also known as Mitigate+. CLIFF-GRADS aims to build the capability of early career agricultural students in developing countries to conduct applied research on climate change mitigation in agriculture. Funding is provided by the New Zealand Government, the CGIAR Trust Fund and bilateral agreements in support of Mitigate+.
A recording of the second session of the GRA Flagship Project webinar series is now available to view.
This session introduced the following two Flagship Projects:
- Development of context-specific emissions factors from the application of nitrogenous fertilisers
- Flagship Goal: To encourage global efforts to reduce GHG emissions from nitrogenous fertiliser by enabling its usage to be more accurately reflected in national level GHG accounting.
- Presented by: Dr. Marta Alfaro, Instituto de Investigaciones Agropecuarias (INIA), Chile (email here)
- Evaluation of mitigation and adaptation co-benefits of agricultural GHG emission reduction strategies over time
- Flagship Goal: To develop and apply new protocol-based methods for providing national decision-makers with evidence-based knowledge to ensure agricultural mitigation strategies have lasting impact.
- Presented by: Erik Mencos, Columbia University Climate School, USA (email here)
The session was chaired by Dr. Harry Clark (NZAGRC, New Zealand) and each presentation was followed by time for Q&A.
Spark Climate Solutions is a non-profit doing early climate solution field-building in neglected, high-climate-leverage fields. Spark currently focuses in the livestock methane emissions and natural methane emissions, and will add more areas as our team expands. Spark does not conduct its own research.
Spark is hiring a roadmapping scientist, analyst, and enteric methane program lead roles on its agriculture and ecology team to accelerate research support in these areas, and smooth the path to adoption of breakthrough innovations, working with the current Spark team. These positions are remote, but regular working hours overlap with the Pacific Time zone of the USA is necessary.
The Roadmapping Scientist or Roadmapping Analyst will develop a set of research and research policy recommendations and priorities based on substantial deep review through literature and conversation. They’ll communicate these results internally and externally.
The Enteric Methane Program Lead will drive strategic and collaborative efforts in field building, including spinning up new programs internal to Spark, with other organizations, and seeding new organizations where needed. They will be the face of Spark’s program to the non-profits, governments.
LEARN MORE HERE.