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Tamale, Ghana – There are fast evolving changes taking place in all the areas of Ghana’s agricultural sector. The sector employs nearly 60 percent of the country’s total workforce.
From the cultivation of thousands of acreages of cereal crops, tubers, vegetables, fruit-bearing trees to the rearing of herds of livestock of different kinds, tells one that there is a significant percentage of Ghanaians who have embraced farming either for commercial purposes or for leisure.
But what is farming in this 21st century without the availability of the required technology to drive the needed change or bring about the kind of value addition that would yield the expected results or gains one expects to see when he/she ventures into it?
For instance, in the livestock sector, farmers are confronted with the lack of veterinary doctors to cater for the health needs of their animals. Approximately, less than 30 veterinary doctors are serving over 5 million livestock farmers across the country.
Thanks to Cowtribe Technology Limited, a social enterprise based in Tamale in the Northern Region of Ghana, thousands of livestock farmers are beginning to heave a sigh of relief as the company breathes life into their activities.
With a simple mobile-technology application, the company is able to reach out to livestock farmers with vaccines alongside giving them the required education on livestock management, co-founder Alima Bawah told Savannahnews in a recent interview at a technology exhibition and competition organised by MTN Ghana in Tamale.
Though Northern Ghana is among the largest producers of livestock especially cattle, sheep and goats, there still remains a largely untapped opportunity and this could be attributed to many challenges including the fear of losing one’s investment to disease outbreak amid inadequate veterinary doctors in the system.
Founded in 2016, the company provides on-demand and subscription based animal vaccine delivery services to farmers in a timely and efficient manner. It has proven to be a novel innovation that allows farmers to subscribe and be tracked for delivery of variety of animal health services via SMS or voice calls in languages they understand.
“We have served nearly 30,000 farmers across the Upper West, Upper East and Northern Regions. We’re adding on more districts in the Eastern Region and hoping to make our services available and accessible to all livestock farmers in the country”, Ms Bawah said.
To benefit from Cowtribe Technology services, all a farmer needs is Ghc10.00 to register and have his/her records uploaded unto a database whereas a vaccine calendar helps in scheduling the date and time the farmer is supposed to have his/her animals vaccinated. On the day of vaccination, a message or call is delivered to the farmer to remind him/her to get ready for vaccination as a veterinary doctor is despatched to the location of the farmer.
Recently, Cowtribe signed its first major deal with the Ghana National Association of Cattle Farmers to help expand its services to over 1 million cattle farmers in the country by 2020.
“This agreement with GNACAF will cut down the 30 percent deaths recorded every year in the livestock farming business due to preventable diseases couple with inadequate veterinary doctors” Ms Bawah said, adding that “the goal is to leverage on Cowtribe’s technology to among other things identify, tag and track all cattle to ensure an effective delivery of vaccines and provision of various support services to farmers”.
For a start, one hundred thousand farmers in selected districts across the country have been put on a one year pilot programme under the deal. By 2020, the lack of data about where and when vaccines are required by Ghanian livestock farmers would have been adequately addressed by the award-winning company.
Cowtribe’s main challenge now is lack of capital to expand.
By savannahnewsonline.com
