 Welcome to ILRI. I'm sorry that I can't be here but it's a source of great personal gratification that I've been named as the patron of this wonderful institution. One of the best things that I've done over the years and it's some years back now was to serve on the ILRAD, the Procursor of ILRI, the ILRAD board where I was chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee. I learned an enormous amount from that experience and I'm very grateful that I was able to do that. The idea behind ILRAD, ILRI was always to bring the best available science to problems concerned with African livestock production. It continues in that theme since it combined with the International Livestock Research Centre in Addis Ababa, ILCA to form ILRI. It is very much driven down that road. With modern technology the power of that approach has been enormously enhanced, particularly from the point of view of molecular genetics and the Institute has also greatly expanded its range of activities. It's now working of course in modern technologies like genomics, exploiting those for animal agriculture. It's involved in the analysis of zoonotic disease which of course becomes a problem as we bring people and more intensive agriculture together. It's involved in poultry production and development of poultry industries in Africa and it's played a major role in advising various national governments. This is a tremendous development. ILRI has also of course contributed greatly through training young scientists, more than 8,000 over the years, many from Africa, many from Southeast Asia and other developing regions. So it's a tremendously important institution which operates along with the 15 other consultative group for international agriculture research, CGIR, institutions worldwide to promote human well-being by increasing the availability of food. And this I think is something that all of us can regard with enormous pride and I'm delighted that you're here to discuss issues with regard to this perhaps the most important topic that faces us.