FarmerVet

Abstract

"Dairy farming industry serves as the livelihood for smallholder farmers in developing countries such as in the Asian region. The industry also plays are crucial role in enhancing food security, promoting nutrition, and supporting economic development of a country. In Sri Lanka, the industry has major potential and requires large contribution of relevant stakeholders to reach its full potential. Unfortunately the dairy currently is exhibiting a pronounced shortfall in performance, relying around 50-60% of its output through imports. The growth of this sector at field level is the responsibility of extension services that are provided by public sector, and certain private contributions are seen. Extension services throughout Sri Lankan provide assistance to smallholder farmers, who are the majority of dairy cattle farms in Sri Lanka. The training and education, medical and veterinary assistance, technical assistance, prevalence and disease control are major aspects that are provided to ensure the welfare of animals are at required standard and farms overall are developing to optimize their production. Managing and monitoring these aspects of individual dairy farms closely are essential and providing frequent and timely assistance ensure its success. FarmerVet hence is the solution which assist extension officers to simplify their process of extension services. It allows extension officers; Vets and Livestock Development Instructors, to better manage individual farms of their range by providing individual supervision and support their decision making. The requirements stage was conducted using techniques such as interviews and questionnaires to design and the development of a solution which proposed integrated farmer-extension communication, tracking of farms based on animal health, milk production and breeding segments to analyze their performance and understand the current status, and analysis of overall farms in the area/range. The system has been evaluated by domain experts and non-experts which received positive perspectives. Further, the thesis has been concluded on recommendations and potential future works for the solution."