News
April 2021
Teagasc and the Department of Foreign Affairs have agreed to sign a new MoU on Cooperation in Agriculture for Development. This is the third such agreement signed by the parties. It aims to draw on the parties’ respective strengths and resources to support Ireland’s objectives of reducing hunger and under-nutrition in developing countries through the adoption of a sustainable food systems approach. The new MoU builds on the two previous agreements signed between the parties, and takes cognisance of a number of key policy and other publications that have emerged since the expiry of the last agreement in 2018.
March 2021
Eritrea Dairy Project- First Annual Report
The project team submitted the first annual report Eritrea Dairy project-First Annual Report (PDF) to the EU on 30th March. However, the lockdown measures and travel restrictions issued to curb the spread of COVID affected both in-country and international travel, and thus constrained the overall action implementation. Accordingly, the report is limited in its scope. Nevertheless, the project team managed to complete some critical actions designed to institutionalise the project. This process was essential in creating awareness among stakeholders of the project and securing their buy-in for its future implementation. In view of the long-term experience of Teagasc and some of the other international partners in working in Eritrea, the team is confident that the project can deliver on the key outcomes, outputs and impacts over the remaining period, assuming that work can get underway in 2021.
February 2021
New Projects
Following recent discussions, the Irish Embassies in Tanzania and Uganda have agreed in principle to fund new projects.
Based on studies conducted by Teagasc teams during two visits to Tanzania in 2018 and 2019, a final Proposal (PDF) has now been submitted to the Embassy seeking funding to build long-term institutional relationships between Teagasc and Tanzania’s national agricultural research institute (TALIRI) designed to address key issues such as:
- Poor productivity of livestock as influenced by:
- Genetics and animal breeding
- Animal nutrition and animal management
- Availability of good quality forage especially on smallholder farms
- Animal health issues with a particular focus on health and welfare issues influenced by livestock management
- The roles of women and young people in dairy farming
- Carrying out applied research, capability-building with multiple stakeholders, gender and youth-specific actions and innovation support.
- Promoting green economy principles in sustainable and resilient production and value addition along the value chain.
The Embassy in Uganda wishes to develop a proposal Uganda Assignment TOR (PDF) and multi-year plan for a partnership and knowledge exchange project between Irish and Ugandan partners with the objective of creating sustainable improvements in production, productivity of dairy and beef cattle; to strengthen the complete dairy and beef value chains; and to bolster institutional knowledge support for the sectors. The initiative will draw upon Teagasc and other Irish expertise in agriculture and food to support capability building, undertake collaborative research and innovation management activities and build institutional links between Uganda and Ireland.
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