In this month's New Agriculturist . . .

It's the middle of the day. Two goats, tethered to the stump of a tree, look on as the inhabitants of a small village in the Sahel gather round a large cooking pot. From this pot, delicious smells emerge every time the lid is lifted to stir the contents. And what is inside the pot? Pieces of chicken with onions, peppers, tomatoes and, of greatest interest, par-boiled sorghum, fashioned to cook as conveniently, and as quickly, as rice. On the street and in the supermarkets of the nearby town, sorghum 'rice', and sorghum snacks and drinks of various kinds, are proving to be a popular choice. And sorghum is local, which rice is not, and it is therefore cheap as well as convenient.

Guests at the meal include representatives from an international agricultural research centre. Plant breeders on the research station developed and released to local farmers a higher yielding variety of sorghum. This is now feeding into increased demand stimulated by the development of sorghum 'rice'. Scientist and farmer, shopkeeper and consumer, are all well pleased with progress. As the international agricultural research community of the CGIAR head back home after their annual meeting in Washington, will thought be given to how vertically integrated research and development can be achieved more often? And how will the extension service fit into the picture? See Developments A Change in Perspective.

In this edition of New Agriculturist, and in response to readers' comments, we turn to livestock and, specifically, focus on animal health. The subject is too broad to be covered in one edition so it will also form the basis of the next edition too. The Perspective may provoke some comment as it questions whether indigenous or imported technologies are most likely to succeed. And Points of View come largely from people similar too, though less fortunate perhaps, than those in the Sahelian village described above.

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