Su Kahumbu, a Kenyan social entrepreneur (TED Global Fellow 2010) and 2010 winner of Apps4Africa award for the the iCow application, a cow management platform that helps small-scale farmers manage their dairy cows, will give a presentation on ‘livestock and mobile technology’ at the ILRI Nairobi campus John Vercoe Auditorium, on 11 December 2012, from 1500-1600 hours. View the event announcement: The iCow … Continue reading
Tag Archives: Mobile phones
Agriculture / Asia / Extension / ILRI / ILRIComms / India / Knowledge and Information / South Asia
m-Kisan: Using mobile technologies to strengthen farmer-extension-expert-linkages in India
This week, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) joins partners in India for the launch of the m-kisan project, part of an mFarmer Initiative funded by GSMA (the worldwide association of mobile operators). In partnership with Handygo Technologies, a mobile value adding service provider for major network operators, ILRI will provide quality content mainly for small … Continue reading
‘Moo-bile’ innovation that tracks cow fertility for small farmers in Kenya wins Apps4Africa competition
A dairy cow on one of Kenya’s many smallholder farms consumes maize stover, an important supplementary feed in East Africa (photo credit: ILRI). Apropos the recently concluded AgKnowledge Africa Share Fair, held at the Addis Ababa campus of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), which highlighted local innovations and how to share them, is this … Continue reading
African agri-boom could be ‘bigger than mobile phones’–World Bank VP for Africa
Farming in the highlands of Ethiopia (Credit: ILRI/Habtamu). ‘Agriculture and agri-business offer the biggest transformational potential for Africa, with an even greater positive impact on ordinary people’s lives than the mobile phone boom. ‘“If you ask me what the next ‘big thing’ in Africa will be, I’d say without hesitation agriculture and agri-business,” the World … Continue reading
Animal Diseases / Animal Health / Asia / Disease Control / Emerging Diseases / Knowledge and Information / Livestock / South Asia / Sri Lanka / Zoonotic Diseases
Mobile-phone–based surveillance of infectious disease in Sri Lanka
With infectious zoonotic diseases emerging in animals in low- and middle-income countries, surveillance of animal health in these nations is becoming increasingly important for forecasting disease risks to people. A new paper describes a mobile-phone-based surveillance system for animal populations that has been developed and implemented in Sri Lanka. Using this system, field veterinarians reported … Continue reading
When the cows go moo (with mobile phones)?
So here’s an odd one to ponder for the weekend – could cows have mobile phones? Last week I got to stay on a dairy farm for the weekend (city kids need to smell some country air from time to time). Whilst there, we got a tour of the milking parlour and, even though I’m … Continue reading
Africa / Animal Health / East Africa / Kenya / Pastoralism / Tanzania
Improving animal health in East Africa
In this podcast from the London International Development Centre, four vets describe the challenges affecting livestock within pastoralist communities in East Africa and explain an exciting project to monitor disease by using mobile phones. Dr Ezra Saitoti and Dr Paul Chacha, both field vets for the charity Vetaid, discuss how this innovative technology will help … Continue reading
PNG tribal life holds key to animal disease research
In the Papua New Guinea Highlands, people live in much the same way as they have for centuries. But even in these far reaches, technology is making its first tentative steps into this subsistence way of life. Villagers have been wooed by the lure of mobile telephones, provided to them by companies which are using … Continue reading
Cell phones and cattle: Mobile phones in agriculture
This thesis examines the impact of mobile telephony on productivity in developing nations. Previous studies have suggested that mobile phones have real impacts on economic outcomes in these countries. Using micro-data from Swaziland, Cambodia, and Honduras, this study looks to identify the effects of mobile phone ownership on household productive outcomes in a two-stage regression. … Continue reading
Africa / Animal Diseases / Animal Health / Cattle / East Africa / ECF / Knowledge and Information / Livestock / Tanzania
Using mobile phones to monitor cattle disease
In October, the London International Development Centre (LIDC) organised a workshop to discuss the ‘Impact of Mobile Phones Upon Development and Health’. Three speakers spoke on the use of mobile phones and animal health in Africa: Andrew Hagner (Royal Veterinary College) explained how he and his Undergraduate Research Team used mobile devices to record the … Continue reading
