An innovative approach to link Professionals with livestock raisers of Bangladesh

Enabling Development Intelligence

Modernizing Livestock Management System

Scenario

One of the highest density of cattle in the world 174/km2

Out of 25.7 million total cattle; 6 million are dairy cows

Average yield of milk is 1.7 litre/cow/day

But our shortage accounts for 3/4 and 4/5 for milk and

meat

45.9% of our households own cattle or buffalo

And 95% of cattle farmers are smallholder & have less than 5 cattle There is around 4200 registered veterinarians; full-time practicing veterinarians and animal production professionals are much less

Entrepreneurs called Livestock Service Provider (LSP)/Para-vets are serving almost all corners of Bangladesh

So where does ICT fit in?

Scenario

Challenges addressable through ICT

ICT in Livestock Management System

Scarcity of veterinarians to deliver service

Marginalized farmers cannot afford expert service

Improper record keeping of individual animals

Livestock workers need expert advise

Less focus on animal husbandry issues to grow profit

The Mechanism

EMPOWERED WITH

MOBILE APPLICATION

Livestock Workers

Farmer Households

MAKES VISITS TO

SUBSCRIBED FARMERS

Livestock

LIVESTOCK WORKERS COLLECT

LIVESTOCK DATA

DATA IS SENT VIA MOBILE PHONE

Central Server

DATA RECEIVED INSTANTLY AT SERVER Expert

Veterinarian

STORED DATA IS ACCESSED BY

EXPERT

CAN VIEW DATA IN A WEB-BASED INTERFACE

ADVICE GIVEN TO

LIVESTOCK WORKERS

ADVICE FORWARDED

Veterinary Hospital

REFER CASES THATREQUIRES EXPERT

ATTENTION

Features

Mobile system with triage-based information collection mechanism

Real time information gathering

Single Expert Veterinarian’s service is multiplied

Work scheduling of Livestock Worker on priority-basis

Automated alert generation mechanism

Online prescription and/or advice

Risk categorization for decision support

So how does it work

Step 1: Livestock Worker collects and sends livestock data following a step-by-step decision tree

So how does it work

Step 2: Livestock Professional looks into the data and delivers expert advice

So how does it workStep 3: Livestock worker receives expert advice and delivers to

farmer

Sustainability

Livestock worker’s EnterpriseHow the model inspires sustainability

Livestock Worker

LIVESTOCK HEALTH & MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS

1An Expert

Veterinarian

EXPERT ADVICE

2

Subscribed Farmers

IMPROVED LIVESTOCK SERVICES

3

SUBSCRIPTION FEE

4

Working examples Livestock Monitoring System (LMS)Farmer: 2000 Field User: 17Location: KurigarmDuration: March 2014 - December 2015 Partner: mPower & SHIREE

Initially there was 2 Pilot titled “Intelligent Livestock Management and Monitoring through mobile phone” in Kurigram & Dinajpur which was participated by 400 farmers. These farmers were served by 4 Para-vet/Livestock worker & 4 field facilitators. Total duration was 6 months (July 2012- January 2013)

SHIREE is an extreme poverty eradication program funded by UKaid working on bottom 10% of the poor; around half of their poor beneficiaries rear livestock as principle IGA

ICT based Livestock Management SystemFarmers: 700Field Users: 7 Veterinary compoundersLocation: Bogra, Kotalipara, Pirojpur districtsPartner: mPower & RDA

As part of action research & extension, RDA in partnership with mPower have up taken this project for modernizing Livestock Management System for the smallholder livestock farmers of rural Bangladesh

RDA: Rural Development Academy is a specialized institution dedicated for training, research, action research and extension under the Rural Development & Cooperatives Department (RDCD) of LGRD ministry of Bangladesh government HQ in Bogra.

Successful livestock farming using ICT

Expert Veterinary Advice

Increased Profit

Improved Quality of Livestock Service

Decision Support

Thank You