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1.6335°S, 37.1416°E

Kapiti Research Station

INTERNATIONAL LIVESTOCK RESEARCH INSTITUTE

A livestock, environmental

and agricultural research

station in southeastern Kenya.

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ixty kilometres southeast of Nairobi, on the road to

Mombasa, lies the Kapiti Research Station, 13,000

hectares of pristine, semi-arid rangeland belonging to the

International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). The 85 staff

working and living at Kapiti, most drawn from the local

community, maintain several thousand head of livestock,

including cattle, goats, sheep and camels.

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Kapiti plains ranch, farmhouse

and research centre

The ranch was acquired in parcels between 1981 and in nine en-suite bedrooms, and can accommodate
1987 by the International Laboratory for Research many more people for day visits. Catering is provided
on Animal Diseases (ILRAD)—a predecessor of the by Kapiti’s on-site chef. The farmhouse offers one
International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)—to large and one small meeting room, a fully equipped
produce high-quality, disease-free cattle for research kitchen, and staff housing. Other infrastructure
purposes, mainly the improved control of East Coast on the ranch includes offices, spray races, a newly
fever and African animal trypanosomiasis. designed cattle crush, two cattle yards—the
second with a functioning laboratory—and various
Since then scientists have used the station to permanent structures and mobile cattle enclosures,
conduct research on topics ranging from animal or bomas, for housing livestock at night.
health, productivity and genetics, and rangeland
and environmental science, to forage production Kapiti is located in Kenya’s semi-arid lands (550mm
and climate change. Kapiti is home to a vast array of average rainfall) at an altitude of 1,650–1,900m above
wildlife, including giraffes, gazelles, antelopes and sea level, and is part of the Athi-Kapiti Ecosystem.
zebras, as well as predators such as hyenas, lions, The soils of the ranch are mainly black cotton (in the
cheetahs and leopards. These provide livestock plains) and red cotton (in the ridges); they support
scientists with unique opportunities to include diverse savanna grasses.
wildlife in their research projects.
The ranch’s pasture is usually adequate for its
Owing to recent developments in the neighbourhood livestock farming and for accommodating the
such as the construction of new highways and an vast number of wildlife that roam the land. Three
anticipated high-tech industrial park known as Konza boreholes and nine water pans (the latter fully
Technocity, Kapiti serves as a land-bridge between dependent on rainfall) currently supply the ranch
Nairobi National Park and the Amboseli and Tsavo with water.
parks, and is increasingly becoming a haven for the
region’s wildlife. Kapiti is a working dryland ranch, and produces
heifers, bulls and other animals for commercial
Kapiti’s newly renovated farmhouse is available purposes. It has recently joined a consortium of
for workshops and to visiting scientists wishing to agricultural research institutes known as the Global
conduct research on the ranch. As a Contract Research Farm Platform.
Organization, or CRO, Kapiti offers a “fee for service” to
conduct discovery research, pre-clinical or clinical trials Scientists from more than a score of countries
with the commercial sector (as well as universities have conducted research in Kapiti, in some cases
and research organizations) based on veterinary best producing vital, path-breaking work. But Kapiti is also
practices, known technically as VICH GCP. deeply rooted in the local community and provides
a variety of services, educational and demonstration
Situated in delightful surroundings, the charming programs to neighbouring students at every level,
traditional style farmhouse can host up to 18 people from primary school to post-graduate.

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CURRENT STOCKS

2,500 * KENYAN NATIVE AND

BORAN BEEF CATTLE

1,300 * KENYAN NATIVE RED

MAASAI AND EXOTIC
DORPER SHEEP

450 * GALLA GOATS

70 * SOMALI DROMEDARIES

* These numbers can vary depending on the season and research needs.

A legacy of achievement
Vaccines Smallholder dairy incomes
Vaccines: Research by local Past work at Kapiti helped increase
Kapiti’s research on and international scientists incomes for Kenya’s small-scale milk
contributed to the development, producers, processors and sellers.
livestock contributes production and dissemination Dairy is vitally important to Kenya’s
of a widely used and highly economy, contributing KES3.3 billion
to farmers in Kenya effective vaccine against East in related benefits as well as providing
Coast fever in cattle, which thousands of jobs for Kenyan youth
and around the kills an unvaccinated African and labourers. ILRI is currently
animal every 30 seconds. investing in the development of
world. Here are just
Today, researchers at Kapiti a full-scale dairy facility at Kapiti.
are conducting vaccine trials When fully established, sometime in
a few examples:
against other animal diseases 2020, the facility will not only serve
such as Rift Valley fever and as a research facility but also as a
malignant catarrhal fever. demonstration unit for farmers.

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Livestock-wildlife Breed preservation Climate change

ecosystems When a new breed of meat sheep ILRI researchers at Kapiti
The traditional co-existence from South Africa known as the are for the first time ever
of livestock and wildlife Dorper was introduced locally developing reliable estimations
at Kapiti has enabled ILRI in the 1970s, its greater size led of greenhouse gas emissions
scientists to work closely for to its widespread adoption and from African rangelands. They
many years with partners and indiscriminate cross-breeding with are also testing new ways
neighbouring communities to the indigenous breed, known as the to feed and manage African
find ways to reduce wildlife- Red Maasai. But the Maasai sheep’s livestock to help keepers
livestock-human conflicts. resistance to gastrointestinal better cope with, and mitigate,
Efforts are underway to explore parasites and greater tolerance climate change.
how livestock and wildlife can for drought proved critical. Today,
not only coexist but positively scientists are at work developing a
sustain each other. cross-breed that preserves the best
characteristics of both.

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An agenda for the future

Kapiti’s current research agenda takes on some of the most pressing

issues facing farmers throughout the developing world. A few examples:

Malignant Catarrhal Fever: A disease spread by Rift Valley fever (RVF): Researchers are also
parturient wildebeest and their newborn calves, conducting safety trials of vaccines against other
malignant catarrhal fever is nearly always fatal in animal/human diseases such as RVF, which primarily
cattle and can attack entire herds. Because the infects sheep, goats, cattle and camels, but can also be
only way to prevent it is to keep cattle away from transmitted to people via contact with or consumption
wildebeest during their calving season, pastoralists of contaminated meat or via mosquito bites.
in regions where the disease is endemic are often
forced to forgo prime grazing land. The last major outbreak of RVF in Kenya occurred in
2006-07, when it infected 684 people, caused 234 deaths
ILRI scientists paired with the UK Moredun Research and cost the country KES3.1 billion, or USD31 million. (A
Institute and Global Alliance for Livestock Veterinary more recent outbreak in northern Kenya in June 2018
Medicines (GALVmed) to develop a vaccine trial of sickened 26 people, killed six, and caused a high number
146 steers 8–18 months old. Trials conducted at Kapiti of deaths and abortions in livestock, including camels
have shown a vaccine efficacy rate of 86%. Work is and goats.) The disease has been primarily restricted to
underway to assess the current control methods for Africa, but its potential for further spread has prompted
malignant catarrhal fever and to develop methods for the WHO to consider it an emerging global health threat
the production of a commercial vaccine. and to prioritize research into vaccine development.

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Global warming land surface
temperature measurements
Researchers at Kapiti are using the only two eddy are required. Some of the data are acquired from
covariance towers in Kenya to observe the rangeland satellites, which allow observations at larger scales—
ecosystem. (The towers are, in effect, sophisticated but these data need to be validated with ground truth
weather stations that also measure GHG emissions; measurements. Until now, no sites where land surface
there are some 700 such stations globally, but no temperatures (LST) are observed simultaneously on
others in East Africa). The data is continuously relayed the ground and with satellites existed in East Africa,
to the international space station and will ultimately creating a critical knowledge gap regarding the
enable researchers to assess the resilience of both temperatures being used to model climate change.
crop and pastoral rangeland systems to climatic
stress such as droughts and floods. With funding provided by the UK Space Agency,
scientists from Kings College London and ILRI’s
To understand the extent and intensity of global Mazingira Centre recently installed East Africa’s first,
anthropogenic climate change a vast number of international standard, land-surface temperature
continuous, precise and accurate measurements validation suite at Kapiti. The suite consists of four

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towers up to 30 metres tall containing NASA-

engineered radiometers and digital cameras to
monitor land surface temperatures as well as cloud
and vegetation cover.

These observations will be critical to understanding

how individual ecosystems contribute to or
compensate for climate change. Gathering this
data is standard in developed countries but rarely
achieved in the developing world. Until now, only
eleven ‘flux towers’ were running on the African
continent, each located in different ecosystems in
southern or western Africa.

The land surface temperature validation suite is also

being used to help predict pest outbreaks as part of
the Pest Risk Information Service, or PRISE. PRISE
uses a combination of earth observation technology,
satellite positioning, and plant-pest lifecycle to
anticipate and prepare for potential pest outbreaks.

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Genetic variation in responses to
foot and mouth disease vaccines
Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD)—a highly
contagious disease of cloven-hooved animals—
creates an enormous economic burden in regions
where the disease is endemic. Control of the disease
can be achieved by multiple vaccinations and by
limiting the animal’s movement, but the vaccines
are prohibitively expensive for many livestock
keepers in low- and middle-income countries.

Some animals, intriguingly, are far more responsive

to vaccines than others. The fact that responses can
vary so widely suggests the influence of genotype
on their immune responsiveness. Identifying
the genes associated with either strong or weak
responses could help scientists develop animals
more resistance to the disease and point to new
ways to improve the efficacy of the vaccine.

A new project underway at Kapiti selected 200

previously unvaccinated calves and will assess
their immune response for four months following
vaccination. This information will be used to
estimate antibody responses within and between
sire groups, develop a model to estimate the fraction
of susceptible animals, and identify the haplotypes
associated with ‘good’ or ‘bad’ antibody response.

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About ILRI
The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) Australian animal scientist and Nobel Prize laureate
works for better lives through livestock in developing Peter Doherty serves as ILRI’s patron. Organizations
countries. We are co-hosted by Kenya and Ethiopia, that fund ILRI through their contributions to the
have 14 offices across Asia and Africa, employ some CGIAR Trust Fund make ILRI’s work possible.
620 staff and have an annual operating budget of Organizations that partner with ILRI in its mission
about USD80 million. make livestock research for development a reality.

ILRI works in Africa and Asia to enhance incomes and For more information about Kapiti, or to learn about
livelihoods, improve food security, and reduce disease its contract research capacities, please contact
and environmental degradation. Ilona Gluecks, at I.Gluecks@cgiar.org

Patron: Professor Peter C Doherty, AC, FAA, FRS

Animal scientist, Nobel Prize Laureate for Physiology or Medicine–1996

Box 30709, Nairobi 00100, Kenya ilri.org Box 5689, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Phone: +254 20 422 3000 better lives through livestock Phone: + 251 11 617 2000
Fax: +254 20 422 3001 ILRI is a CGIAR research centre Fax: + 251 11 667 6923
ILRI-Kenya@cgiar.org ILRI has offices in East Africa • South Asia • Southeast and East Asia • Southern Africa • West Africa ILRI-Ethiopia@cgiar.org

Licensed for use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence. • June 2019