An innovative approach to link Professionals with livestock raisers of Bangladesh Enabling Development Intelligence

One of the highest density of cattle in the world 174/km 2 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?

Challenges addressable through ICT Scarcity of veterinarians to deliver service Marginalized farmers cannot afford expert serviceImproper record keeping of individual animals Livestock workers need expert advise Less focus on animal husbandry issues to grow profit

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 THAT REQUIRES EXPERT ATTENTION

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

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

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

Step 3 : Livestock worker receives expert advice and delivers to farmer

Livestock worker’s Enterprise How the model inspires sustainability Livestock Worker LIVESTOCK HEALTH & MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS 1 An Expert Veterinarian EXPERT ADVICE 2 Subscribed Farmers IMPROVED LIVESTOCK SERVICES 3 SUBSCRIPTION FEE 4

Livestock Monitoring System (LMS) Farmer: 2000 Field User: 17 Location: Kurigarm Duration: March 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 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 System Farmers: 700 Field Users: 7 Veterinary compounders Location: Bogra, Kotalipara, Pirojpur districts Partner: 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.

Expert Veterinary Advice Increased Profit Improved Quality of Livestock Service Decision Support Thank You