About Mizoram
Mizoram is a mountainous region and it lies within the tropics between latitude 21.190 C to 24.350 C north and longitude 92.150 C to 93.290 C east. An aerial survey gives an impression of shape of a bitter guard which has been cut horizontally and put in north-south direction on the ground. The whole state is broken into innumerable broken hills locally called as “Tlang” with sharp and pointed hill tops. The slopes are steep on all sides and the elevation ranges from 40 metres to 2157 metres. About 60% of the population depends upon agriculture and allied sector.
Livestock especially pigs and poultry play an important role in rural economy as cultivation is difficult in steep hilly terrain of the state. The farmers are facing hardship in the farming activities. The major factors are no access to new technologies, package of practices, inadequate and timely availability of critical inputs and services. Diseases like swine fever, piglet anaemia, hernia, skin diseases, and piglet diarrhea are common in case of swine while metabolic diseases, viral diseases and mineral deficiency diseases are prevalent in bovine population. Therefore, there is need for specific extension strategy at village level to improve the economy and living standards of farming people.
Prime Focus:
To empower the livestock farmers by providing right information at right time through mobile based agro-advisory system
Implementing Partner:
College of Veterinary Sciences & Animal Husbandry, Central Agricultural University (CAU), Selesih, Aizawl, Pin Code: 796014
The Broad areas of Agro-advisory services includes:
- Animal husbandry advisory services (Livestock production management practices along with vaccination, deworming, disease management, processing, post-harvest handling and marketing) for important domestic animals such as piggery, dairy, and poultry.
- Others:
- Crop advisory – Agriculture & Horticulture (Crop planning, variety selection, package of practices, post-harvest & value addition, etc.)
- Agri-engineering like rural water harvesting techniques
- Input information (Seeds seeding, organic manure, bio-pesticide, farm implements & machinery, disease forecasting & management)
- Financial institutions (for banking, loan & crop insurance)
- Awareness on various Agricultural Schemes.
- Fisheries(Scientific aquaculture practices along with disease management
Location/ Districts to be covered:
- Aizawl
- Kolasib
- Mamit
- Serchhip
- Saitul
Livestock / Poultry to be catered through IIDS (Mobile Based Advisories)
- Pig (6000)
- Poultry (5000)
- Cattle (250)
- Dog (500)
Number of Farmers to be registered with detailed farm information (Livestock / Farm Ponds / Farm Land / Crops)
- No. of Farmers: 6000
Type of problems (broad category)
- Pig, Cattle, Poultry: Management Problem, Biosecurity, Low productivity, lack of input
Common Diseases
- Pig: Swine fever, Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS) Piglet anaemia, skin diseases, hernia etc
- Poultry: Ranikhet, Fowl pox, IBD, Respiratory diseases etc.
- Dog: Canine distemper, parvovirus infection, GI tract infection, Ascitis, Cystitis, Urolithiasis, skin diseases etc
- Cattle: FMD, Milk fever, Black quarter, Mastitis, Haemorrahic Septicaemia etc
Current Status of Extension
- Mainly State Dept. of Veterinary & Animal Husbandry (traditional extension approach)
The need and benefits of Mobile based Advisory
- The state is a hilly area and Veterinary hospitals are situated far away from remote villages. It is quite difficult to reach in time if any problem arises. If mobile based advisory can be applied in local languages, it will help the farms in time to take preliminary treatment.
Mobile Based Advisory for Subject Matter Specialist
- It will help the extension functionaries / Subject Matter Specialist to get information from the farmers immediately which will help in providing advisories in time.
Training and Workshops to be held in 3 years
- Training to Farmers: 10-15 (avg. 25 farmers/training)
- Training to Livestock coordinator: 8-10
- Animal Health Camps: 15-20 (avg. 100 farmers / camp)
- Project Awareness Workshops: 30-40 (avg. 50 farmers per workshop)
- Registration of farmers: Each farmer has to register himself/ herself to get the desired services by providing required details; e.g. animal husbandry advisory services they need to provide their farm details. Each farmer will get a unique ID number and all the transactions will be recorded in the database. A total of 6000 farmers will be selected from these villages depending upon the number of farmers in the villages.
- Registration of Farm Animals: Initially few animals (Pig, cattle and dog) to be registered. A format will be developed in consultation with other project partners and DIC to record the information of the animals. A specific tag number (Identification number) will be provided to each animals. Whenever the farmer calls for any problems in his farms, he/she will be asked to identify the animals with the Tag no. and the expert will come to know the details of the animals from the system.
- Awareness and Training Programme To aware the people regarding the project activities, encourage them to take the benefit of project in maximum extent by the beneficiaries and need based training progrmme for the project farmers will be conducted. Moreover, animal health camps will be organized for the benefit of the farmers in the registered villages.
- Delivery of farm advices (Pull Based): To get the advice/information service the farmers will call to the lab. Farmer’s queries will be answered by the technicians at advisory labs who will also record. If the expert at centre is unable to answer the query, he/ she will record the query and transfer to the Subject Matter Specialist (SMS) at the concern centre of the University and the specialist will answer the query virtually.
- Delivery of Information Services (Push Based): The system will also aggregate location specific data from various reliable information sources and disseminate it to the registered users depending on the user’s specified (as mentioned during their registration to the service) time and mode. This information would be aggregated by the system as well as manually by the project staff.
Type of Content (Available)
- Bulletins on different livestock are available
Development of Content (Proposed) – Small Videos / Voice Messages, SMS, Calendar etc in local language
- Small video clips on different diseases, livestock techniques
- SMS on livestock advisories
- Diseases calendar
- Livestock and Animal Husbandry Practices
- Cattle farming/ dairying practices
- Pig farming practices
- Layering poultry farming practices
- Broiler poultry farming practices
- Backyard poultry farming practices
- Content will be prepared on different diseases of livestock and poultry like FMD, HS, BQ, Swine fever, Ranikhet Disease, IBD, PRRS etc. and bio-security measures which will be suitable for this area.
- Vaccination and deworming of domestic animals and pets.
- Artificial Insemination for pigs and cattle
Status of Mobile availability with Farmers (Feature Phones / Smart Phones)
- Almost all the farmers or family members are having phone (Either smart or feature)
