At least three quarters of the Senegal population raises cattle yet face challenges from cattle rustlers. But according to a report by BBC, cattle herders are now using mobile phones to keep track of cows, reporting amazing benefits.
“The problems that the farmers face could be solved by technology,” Amadou Sow informed BBC.
While Senegal relies heavily on agriculture earning at least $1bn USD coming from livestock, reports of suicide in families has become common. Nevertheless, with the help of Coders4Africa and Microsoft 4Africa, a mobile application has been designed to gather livestock data for the Senegalese ministry of livestock, with the aim of protecting cattle from theft and monitoring their health.
To use the mobile application, animals are registered on a web-based application, which generates a unique number. A photo is then uploaded with a description. In the field, laptops are connected to the web using a mobile broadband dongle.
And once cattle fall victims to cattle raiders, each farmer can contact police officers and have a region wide SMS alert send out using any mobile phone.
“If you take 10 African people, three have computers, but if you take the same 10 we have 10 African people with 10 mobiles,” Coders4Africa’s Leger Djiba, informed BBC on the benefits of the app, “We are sure that the best way to give information, to deliver information, is using mobile.”