What we do

LD4D is a network that connects data suppliers and data users to learn and collaborate. Our ambition is to make livestock data more usable, accessible, and appropriate for use by decision makers.

Knowledge sharing and collaboration

LD4D aims to help ‘data suppliers’ and ‘data users’ interact effectively, to identify common challenges, share experiences, and discuss potential solutions.

• Discover upcoming and past events including webinars, learning sessions and online workshops
• Connect with us to get regular updates, find out about opportunities, and share your work
• Subscribe to the LD4D Newsletter
• Explore our livestock data resources including publications and data visualisations

The LD4D secretariat facilitates thematic Communities of Practice (CoPs) to support discussions on priority themes identified by the network.

Gender and Livestock Data CoP

The Gender and Livestock Data Community of Practice was launched in 2022, in response to interest from LD4D members working on measuring gender empowerment in livestock development. This active community has nearly 100 members and holds regular events and online discussions.

• Learn more about the Livestock & Gender Data CoP

Previous Communities of Practice

A number of thematic LD4D Communities of Practice were active in previous years and may be revived in the future depending on demand and available resources.

Livestock Ontologies

This group brought together research organisations and individuals to answer the question “How do we present livestock data in a consistent manner?”

• Update from the livestock ontologies working group (December 2020)
• Watch: Livestock data, FAIR and Ontologies: what are the obstacles and solutions? (September 2022)

Livestock & Environment

This group explored how organisations can support each other with environmental data and evidence for better decisions in the livestock sector. Members included organisations that are implementing livestock development projects, data collectors and analysts, environmental modellers and funders.  

• Workshop report:  How can data empower environmentally responsible livestock development? (September 2022)

LD4D supports short-life Working Groups where members collaborate on thematic data problems, and Solutions Groups, where members collaboratively generate solutions to decision makers' data challenges. 

The LD4D Secretariat will be re-activating working groups in 2024. These will be announced through our newsletter so please make sure you are subscribed.

Previous Working Groups included:

• Livestock Fact Check: this group investigated the evidence behind popular facts about livestock, to discover whether those facts are accurate and up to date.
• Livestock modelling: This group brought together modellers who working within the livestock sector. It aimed to facilitate collaboration to answer some of the big questions relating to livestock.
• Data visualisation and dashboards: This group investigated the application of data visualisations to better interpret livestock evidence