Supporting Evidence-Based Interventions (SEBI)

News

Updates on SEBI’s activities

Ethiopia’s dairy sector welcomes mastitis training materials

Mastitis management training materials in Amharic
New tool aims to boost milk production and improve animal health

Launch of new SEBI-Livestock 5-year programme

SEBI-Livestock - The Centre Supporting Evidence Based Interventions in Livestock
SEBI-Livestock – a new five-year programme, will continue our work on monitoring the impacts of livestock investments in low-and middle-income countries, supporting the LD4D community to deliver solutions, and developing livestockdata.org as a valuable data and evidence resource for the sector.

PHD opportunity: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to improve predictive modelling of Anti Microbial Resistance

PHD opportunity: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to improve predictive modelling of Anti Microbial Resistance
The project will use data-driven approaches to model antimicrobial use and resistance in human-livestock interactions in low-and middle-income countries.

How Fulani pastoralists in Nigeria are fighting back against mastitis and antimicrobial resistance

Measures to prevent infections aim to reduce antibiotic use and improve milk production

Pandemic lockdowns take their toll on Nigeria’s livestock keepers

Abdulkadir Musa Mohammed working with a pastoral community in Nigeria
As Nigeria eases COVID-19 restrictions, Livestock Officer Abdulkadir Musa Mohammed reports on the challenges to livestock-dependent communities

New laboratory will advance Nigeria’s fight against ‘cattle plague’

Ilorin University officials visit the new Mycoplasma laboratory on 9 July 2020
Mycoplasma laboratory at Ilorin University will support routine diagnostic testing of economically important diseases.

New livestock data portal aims to drive better decisions and investments

Livestocdata.org aims to communicate the best available data and evidence on livestock health and productivity.
Livestockdata.org offers data and evidence on livestock health and productivity in low and middle-income countries

Four reasons why livestock data matter in the COVID-19 crisis

Cows on Kapiti Ranch, Kenya
Since 2016, the team at Supporting Evidence Based Interventions (SEBI) have worked to mobilise and apply data and evidence to help the livestock community make better decisions, ones that improve livelihoods for smallholders in low and middle-income countries. Now, we are trying to untangle and foresee how COVID-19 intersects with our work. We point out four areas of convergence, and suggest key actions now and in the future.

New charity aims to improve capacity for regulating animal medicine

New SMArt board trustees at the launch event in London. Photo credit: SEBI
SEBI director Andy Peters attends the launch of SMArt, a new charity to improve the regulation of veterinary medicines worldwide.

Livestock data community deliberates strategies for impact

LD4D 2020 meeting participants
Report back from Livestock Data for Decisions (LD4D) meeting, 4-6 February 2020.

Easter Bush scientists share AgriFood Transformations for Africa

Organisers and participants of the Easter Bush research Dialogue at Africa Week 2019
Campus-wide research dialogue spurs ideas for collective action at Africa Week 2019

Giving ‘neglected’ livestock technologies a chance

A Tanzanian Maasai man helps administer a vaccine to cattle against East Coast fever. Photo: S. Mann (ILRI)
Researchers investigate overlooked animal health technologies for Africa

Animated videos illustrate Mastitis prevention in smallholder dairy cattle

Person hand milking a dairy cow
A series of openly licensed training videos provide clear and easy to follow examples of good on-farm practices for smallholder dairy farmers.

Veterinarians get data-savvy to map livestock health

Goat in Kenya
Innovative data-driven tool will accelerate collection of crucial evidence

Video: Can we feed the planet, and stay within planetary boundaries? With Professor Mario Herrero

Feeding the planet within planetary boundaries - Seminar by Prof Mario Herrero
In this seminar, Professor Mario Herrero addresses the key messages of the EAT Lancet Report, including the role of livestock in sustainable and healthy diets. 

Working together to track the impact of livestock development projects

Participants at the SEBI workshop on Monitoring, Learning and Evaluation
Projects will generate data and insights on progress and impacts

New initiatives take aim at livestock disease in Nigeria

Udder of Cross Bred Dairy Cow, Nils Teufel ILRI
Evidence-based interventions set to improve health and productivity for cattle, sheep and goats in Africa’s most populous country

African Livestock research featured at Edinburgh University General Council meeting

Map of Easter Bush African Livestock Projects
Easter Bush livestock researchers highlight range of animal health productivity projects

An evidence-based approach for improving young livestock health in Ethiopia

A research consortium led by the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture is evaluating husbandry and health interventions that may improve young livestock health, and thus inform a large-scale strategy for reducing young stock mortality.

Can the Internet of Things help close livestock data gaps in Africa?

Students at the IoT Hackathon. Photo credit: University of Edinburgh Embedded and Robotics Society
Hackathon students devise new ways to track animal health and productivity

New study uncovers source of mystery neurological disease devastating Tanzanian sheep and goats

Dr Tito Kibona and Dr Ellen Hughes conducting a neurological examination on a sheep. Photo: Kathryn Allan
Researchers have identified the source of a neurological disease in small ruminants in northern Tanzania as the dog tapeworm Taenia multiceps, opening the door for potential solutions.

African Livestock research in focus at Easter Bush Campus

Participants learned about  Edinburgh-based research on African livestock
“Livestock for African livelihoods: Science, data & innovation for a healthy future” highlighted innovative research as part of Africa Week 2018 Celebrations

Better data on livestock disease may unlock Nigeria’s dairy dilemma

Sheep and lamb in Nigeria
The University of Edinburgh Supporting Evidence Based Interventions (SEBI) project has been supporting a study of the most impactful livestock diseases in Nigeria, starting with cattle and small ruminants in 7 Northern states.

Livestock: a pathway out of poverty, but only with better data

Bill Gates meets the SEBI team
“Great science is helping to turn livestock into a pathway out of poverty for hundreds of millions of people,” said Bill Gates in his recent visit to the University of Edinburgh's Easter Bush Campus.

LiveGAPS 2 new website

The Livegaps2 project has created a new website LiveGAPS 2 with the latest update on project developments.

October 2017 - Livestock Facts Update

Louise Donnison, SEBI data analyst, attended LD4D at the GLAD meeting at ILRI, Kenya in October 2017.

Linked Open Data in Ariculture

Louise Donnison, SEBI data analyst, attended a 2 day workshop in Berlin on Linked Open Data in Agriculture.

LD4D takes on CGIAR’s Big Data in Agriculture Livestock Community of Practice

Karen Smyth attended the CGIAR’s Big Data in Agriculture Convention which took place in Cali, Colombia in September 2017.

SEBI in the spotlight

SEBI was in the news this week with the project receiving coverage across a range of media outlets.

SEBI collaborations with UC Davis

Karen Smyth, SEBI Deputy Director, met with Woutrina Smith, Young Stock Mortality Project, University of California and Patricia Conrad, Co-Director, University of California Global Health Institute, to discuss SEBI and UC Davis’s activities in Ethiopia.

June 2017 LD4D – Developing the community

The Livestock Data for Decision (LD4D) community of practice held its first dedicated meeting in June 2017 in Edinburgh.

SEBI External Advisory Panel (EAP) inception meeting

The SEBI External Advisory Panel held its inception meeting in Edinburgh in June 2017.

University of Glasgow’s surveillance platform launch in Tanzania

Thirty participants met for the launch of the University of Glasgow’s surveillance platform project at the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology (NM-AIST) in Arusha, Tanzania on 5 May 2017.

Livestock Vaccine Innovation Fund (LVIF) application review meeting

Prof Andy Peters, chair of the Expert Advisory Panel (EAP) of the Governing Council of the International Development Research Canada (IDRC) met in April 2017 in Ottawa to consider applications for the second call under the LVIF programme which was on the theme of veterinary vaccine improvement.

Meeting the team at Guelph

Prof Andy Peters visited Dr Suresh Neethirajan at the university of Guelph in April to discuss the start of a SEBI funded project to field test a new hand held diagnostic device for bovine disease.

LD4D goes live!

Livestock Data for Decisions (LD4D) has gone live!

Technological developments at IAEA

Cheryl Heath and Karen Smyth visited IAEA in April where they attended a conference on diagnostic techniques for detection of animal and zoonotic diseases.

Dai drops in to meet the team

Dai Harvey, Land o’Lakes visited the SEBI team to discuss his livestock breeding project.

CSIRO visit to Edinburgh

The SEBI team was pleased to host Brendan Power, CSIRO on a 2 day visit to Edinburgh.

Insights into livestock health and mortality in Ethiopia

SEBI team members Cheryl Heath and Alan Duncan visited Ethiopia on a data gathering exercise.

SEBI and University of Guelph sign on the dotted line

Researchers at the University of Guelph have been awarded $125,000 under SEBI Programme 3 to fund field trials to test a portable hand held instrument that can detect animal diseases.

Contract completion- SEBI fund University of Glasgow’s surveillance platform

The University of Glasgow has received funding of $1.14m through SEBI Program 1 to building a surveillance platform that will allow for the development and long-term evaluation of the animal health interventions in a sustainable way.

SEBI systems coming together

SEBI has been experimenting with the  business intelligence tool Tableau, to create visualizations from harmonized data stored in the SEBI database.

SEBI Project has been launched!

The SEBI project was officially launched at a convening in Rome in January 2017.

Introduction to the international livestock modelling community

SEBI Deputy Director, Karen Smyth attended a workshop at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Nairobi 16 & 17 December 2016 to learn more about the work of IMPACT model, as part of the collaboration between IFPRI (International Food Policy Research Institute) and ILRI under the Global Futures and Strategic Foresight program.

SEBI goes down under

Mario Herrero and his team at CSIRO, Brisbane hosted Cheryl Heath in November 2016.

Monitoring and Evaluation with BAIF

Cheryl Heath visited Dr Pande and his team at BAIF Development Research Foundation, Pune, India, in November 2016.

Isaac Olorunshola, Univeristy of Ilorin knowledge exchange visit to SEBI

Isaac Olorunshola, Department of Veterinary Microbiology at the University of Ilorin visited SEBI as part of a data gathering and knowledge exchange exercise.