• All Projects [1]
• Current Projects [2]
• Concluded Projects [3]
• Relevant Publications [4]

Research Program Manager: Dr Doug Gray
email: gray@aciar.gov.au [5]

ACIAR's investments in animal health and production will largely focus on issues that enable smallholder farmers to refine their livestock management toward production and income-generation, in contrast to 'keeping' livestock solely as an asset. These issues include aspects of the market such as prices; seasonal trends; product quality and market access (including biosecurity) to reduce the risks involved in moving from a household-based to a market economy. Development of health programs for country-species-disease combinations and other livestock husbandry technologies will be considered where clear institutional pathways for adoption of the results of research by smallholders exist and where Australia has experience and expertise.

Animal Health has a focus on the following themes, with the emphasis on diseases of regional significance:

Transboundary diseases
Zoonotic diseases
Diseases affecting production
Diseases affecting trade and market access

The impacts derived will be reduced disease-control costs, improved animal productivity, improved product quality and improved market access. Increasingly the emphasis will shift from production-related diseases to those of national and regional importance (usually rapidly spreading viral disease) and those affecting trade and human health.

Within each theme, ACIAR will address gaps in the successful management of a disease and may include defining the disease issue or problem, understanding the biology of the disease (epidemiology, modelling), improving the ability to detect diseases (pathology, refinement of old tests, development of new tests or platforms), application of diagnostic tests to disease surveillance systems and refinement of these systems and development and application of control measures.

For more information see IAS38 Future directions for ACIAR's animal health research.

Current Projects

AH/1997/058 [6] - Increasing the productivity of cattle in India and Australia with rumen fungal treatments

AH/1998/054 [7] - Poverty alleviation and food security through improving the sweet potato-pig systems in Indonesia

AH/2002/038 [8] - Improved productivity, profitability and sustainability of sheep production in Maharashtra, India through genetically enhanced prolificacy, growth and parasite resistance

AH/2003/001 [9] - Management of CSF and FMD at the village level in Lao PDR

AH/2003/008 [10] - Improved feeding systems for more efficient beef cattle production in Cambodia

AH/2004/020 [11] - The development of a national surveillance system for classical swine fever, avian influenza, and foot and mouth disease in Indonesia

AH/2004/032 [12] - Identification of policy responses to minimise negative socio-economic impacts of an avian influenza epidemic in Indonesia

AH/2004/040 [13] - The epidemiology, pathogenesis and control of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in ducks in Indonesia and Vietnam

AH/2004/046 [14] - Forage legumes for supplementing village pigs in Lao PDR

AH/2004/074 [15] - Large scale production of a vaccine and diagnostic reagents for Jembrana disease in Indonesia

AH/2005/086 [16] - Best practice health and husbandry of cattle, Cambodia

AH/2006/025 [17] - Understanding livestock movement and the risk of spread of transboundary animal diseases

AH/2006/050 [18] - Control and characterisation of highly pathogenic avian influenza strains in poultry in Indonesia

AH/2006/156 [19] - Livestock movement and managing disease in eastern Indonesia and eastern Australia

AH/2006/157 [20] - Animal health surveillance systems for Papua New Guinea

AH/2006/159 [21] - Best practice health and husbandry of cattle and buffalo in Lao PDR

AH/2006/161 [22] - Management of pig associated zoonosis in the Lao PDR

AH/2006/166 [23] - Improving veterinary service delivery in a decentralised Indonesia

AH/2006/169 [24] - Cost-effective biosecurity for non-industrial commercial poultry operations in Indonesia

AH/2008/037 [25] - Potential economic impacts of the Varroa bee mite on the pollination of major crops in Papua New Guinea