Tag: technology

How Digital Innovation Will Unlock the Potential of Africa’s Livestock Producers

Posted on by team galvmed

Written by Enrique Hernández Pando, Head of Commercial Development & Impact, and Tom Osebe, Senior Manager, Commercial Development & Impact, Africa. Originally published by Farming First.

New animal health platforms are needed to unleash the commercial and development potential of small-scale livestock producers in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Home to tens of millions of small-scale livestock producers and a quarter of the world’s livestock, Sub-Saharan Africa has the potential to become the commercial powerhouse of the animal health industry. For decades, however, a variety of investment barriers have prevented animal health companies from tapping into this potential. A lack of market data and intelligence makes investment a challenging proposition and the widely dispersed and often remote farms tended by small-scale producers are a challenge to veterinary service networks.

This is not just bad news for business. Limited investment has denied the continent’s small-scale producers the same access to quality animal health products and expertise as their counterparts in the Global North. Reliant on limited and often unregulated medicines and unable to meet regularly with vets, millions of small-scale producers are forced to raise their animals sub-optimally, impacting profits. Livestock’s proven ability to fuel sustainable development through increased incomes, improved nutrition and economic prosperity is being curtailed.

Now for the good news. With digital innovations that are already being developed, we can unleash the enormous potential of Sub-Saharan Africa’s small-scale livestock producers and turbo-charge the animal health industry.

Market intelligence platform

Establishing prosperous and sustainable animal health markets is a long-term goal of the Global Alliance for Livestock Veterinary Medicines (GALVmed), an organisation dedicated to making livestock vaccines, medicines and diagnostics accessible and affordable in Africa and South Asia. For the past few years, GALVmed has been working with a wide range of partners to create a suite of digital platforms designed to finally bridge the gaps between the animal health industry and the continent’s small-scale producers.

The first of these – which is being developed in partnership with AgNexus Africa, Kruger Consulting, Pizzly Consult and Folio3 – is a Market Intelligence Platform. By aggregating reliable and up-to-date sales data from various sources in the animal health industry, the Market Intelligence Platform will give companies an unprecedented understanding of the size and nature of the animal health market across sub-Saharan Africa.

In 2024, a minimum viable product will be developed to allow users to size and estimate the Kenyan market. This will help companies quantify demand, secure investments and reach underserved small-scale livestock producers. The platform will be expanded to include Tanzania, Ethiopia and Nigeria. 

To ensure the Market Intelligence Platform continues to provide accurate information for years to come, GALVmed is also helping to digitise the agrodealer industry. Since December 2023, AgNexus Africa and GALVmed have been equipping hundreds of agrodealers in Kenya and Tanzania with smart devices that log their sales. Not only is this improving the efficiency of the industry, but the logged sales data will be fed into the Market Intelligence Platform, providing businesses with a steady stream of real-time market data. 

Telehealth and e-commerce platform

The second major innovation is the Telehealth and E-commerce Platform, which is designed to tackle the limited reach of animal health professionals in sub-Saharan Africa. Currently, vets and paravets can only visit about five farms a day as they navigate remote villages, poor infrastructure and seasonal access roads. The Telehealth and E-commerce Platform is set to dramatically increase the number of cases these professionals can take on by enabling virtual consultations and clinical sign recognition.

In partnership with VetNOW, the National Animal Disease Information Service and Africa Veterinary Technicians Association, a team of 10 vets has been enlisted to populate the platform with diagnostic information for an initial 55 priority diseases of cattle, sheep and goats. There are also plans for the platform to enable vets and paravets to give prescriptions, order products, submit cases for laboratory testing and even scan product barcodes to see if a particular animal health product is licensed to be traded. The Telehealth and E-commerce Platform will in future integrate with the Market Intelligence Platform, creating comprehensive market datasets for the poorly understood last mile of animal health value chains.   

In 2024, a minimum viable product offering telemedicine and clinical sign recognition – but without the e-commerce component – will be developed, covering Kenya’s Kiambu and Nakuru counties. This project is being implemented within Kenya’s veterinary medicine practice regulations.

Unleashing the potential of livestock producers

These platforms will be available via AgNexus Africa and VetNOW. The Market Intelligence Platform data will use a fee-based subscription model to ensure its long-term sustainability. The Telehealth and E-commerce Platform, meanwhile, will work on a demand aggregation model – similar to how taxi and food delivery apps work – with VetNOW in charge of the day-to-day operations. 

By ending the disconnect between the animal health sector and small-scale livestock producers, these platforms will help unleash the commercial and development potential of sub-Saharan Africa’s livestock.

Cover image credit: @Shutterstock/Wazzkii

Barriers to livestock health market: Distribution of products

Posted on by team galvmed

A simple definition of distribution in business is the delivery or supply of goods and services to users or consumers. Although distribution may involve various functions e.g., sourcing of raw materials, inventory control, warehousing, logistics, marketing channels, etc., efficient delivery of products or services to customers is one of the important objectives of the service in a business.

Like in other sectors, businesses in animal health also have as their objective efficient delivery of their products, often for a profit to ensure sustainability. While achievable, it is a however a challenge or a barrier in markets comprised predominantly of small-scale livestock producers (SSPs).

In a survey conducted by GALVmed in July 2020, approximately half of the respondents identified 1) issues around levels of market information to drive investment and level of manufacturing capacity dedicated to the SSP sector and product registration, and 2) issues around time, effort, and expense required to register products in target countries as the biggest barriers in the animal health supply chain in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The survey was conducted amongst a range of professionals across the supply chain of livestock animal health products, into the key constraints and opportunities facing the animal health industry in SSA. Other issues identified included local retailing – issues around geographic dispersion, levels of customer service, product offering and product care; animal health services – issues around numbers and levels of training/incentivisation for effective support of the SSP sector and SSP customer demand; and issues around levels of animal health awareness, general husbandry and productivity. All these contribute to challenges in the overall level of demand for animal health products from within this sector.

Although only the major issues identified by respondents are highlighted above, what is clear from the survey is that barriers to efficient delivery of products to SSPs, span the entire animal health value chain i.e., from manufacturing to end-users.

The survey confirmed many of the barriers that continue to impede the efficient delivery of animal health products to SSPs, which GALVmed has and continues to address, through its projects and in partnership with other industry players. GALVmed strives to increase awareness, adoption, and availability of animal health products to SSPs by addressing challenges such as lack of warehousing and cold chain facilities, poor animal health services, SSP awareness and education, and last-mile delivery of products and services to SSPs in remote rural areas.  

GALVmed’s interventions are in line and supports some of the solutions suggested by respondents, which included harmonisation and simplification of registration procedure, improving infrastructure for cold chain, and awareness and training of SSPs.

While barriers exist, GALVmed has demonstrated through the years that, given the livestock population numbers and their importance in improving livelihoods, the SSP market segment presents a huge potential for the animal health sector. GALVmed is therefore working with partners on a proposed platform known as the Integrated Intelligent Logistic and Supply Chain Platform, to address strategies and interventions that will potentially transform distribution of animal health products in SSA. A prioritised component of the platform will be diseases awareness, in line with the solutions suggested by survey respondents.

The Integrated Intelligent Logistics and Supply Chain Platform is one of three proposed platforms to deliver a comprehensive, financially sustainable solution that will unlock new opportunities for growth in the animal health industry.

Written by Thembinkosi Ramuthivheli, Senior Manager of Commercial Development & Impact, Africa.

Barriers in the livestock health market: Service provision

Posted on by team galvmed

Animal health services and products are still out of reach for millions of Small-Scale Producers (SSPs) in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and South Asia (SA). One of the reasons for this is that even though SSPs account for a large number of animal keepers in SSA and SA – 35% of cattle head and 43% of sheep and goat head of world respectively, they are scattered, concentrated in rural areas and operate their production on low input, low output system. This makes animal health service provision challenging. SSPs also have less to spend on animal health further pushing away veterinary service from their reach. A veterinary service provider needs to travel long distances to visit just a few farms and a smaller number of animals, which makes their services costly. Consequently, SSPs tend not to treat their animals or in the instances that they do, they get advice from less qualified people and use low-quality medicines inappropriately. This often leads to bigger issues such as antimicrobial resistance (AMR).  It also means a large percentage of animal heads are dying before maturity or performing below capacity after surviving, in absence of effective and reliable animal health service provision.

Filling the gap

More veterinarians are needed to serve and supervise Veterinary paraprofessionals (VPP) work. But this is easier said than done and has been a problem for decades. The ratio of veterinarians to livestock in African countries is 20 times lower than the developed part of the world like Denmark, France, USA. In India, only half of the required number of vets are available currently. In SSA and SA, a small number of veterinarians along with VPPs are expected to carry out a range of animal health services – from vaccination to diagnosis and treatment. This is a big challenge for public, private, and non-profit sectors involved in overall livestock and poultry development to help a large number of SSPs.

One solution that has been tested is filling this gap with trained community-based animal health workers, who perform basic services like vaccination and de-worming. GALVmed for example has worked with trained community animal health workers in supervision of veterinarians in the delivery of millions of doses of Newcastle Disease vaccines to backyard poultry producers. These projects not only served SSPs at their doorstep but also created sustainable employment in rural areas. However, it is not without challenges; including lack of proper visibility of their operations by few veterinarians, making their work difficult to track to ensure quality.

What next then?

The demand for veterinary services in these regions is only going to increase, but the number of vets perhaps not so.  Which is why we need to look at other innovative measures that can help us reach SSPs with services and products. Digital interventions like tele-health platforms have the potential to address some of these requirements, considering the fast growth in the use of the Internet and mobile phones.

Tele-health platforms can quickly connect animal health service providers with SSPs and cut down the unwanted expense in travel and time. Veterinarians can supervise the work of VPPs remotely; diseases and outbreaks can be reported quickly; quality consultation and prescription can stop the use of inferior and fake medicine, and can also help in reducing AMR. Consequently, more animals will survive and produce more to contribute to overall food and nutritional security.

GALVmed is working with partners and veterinary authorities to develop a Telehealth and e-commerce platform with the aim of making products and veterinarian-supervised services available and accessible to SSPs. The Telehealth and e-commerce platform is one of three proposed platforms to deliver a comprehensive, financially sustainable solution that will unlock new opportunities for growth in the animal health industry.

Written by Peetambar Kushwaha, Senior Manager of Commercial Development & Impact, South Asia.

Barriers to livestock health market: Intelligence

Posted on by team galvmed

A thriving, sustainable animal health inputs (AHI) industry is what we need in low-and-middle income countries (LMICs) such as those in Africa. This is where value chain players operate profitably to get the products and services to the farmer who is the ultimate beneficiary. In these regions, a large proportion of agriculture production is contributed by small-scale farmers. According to Africa Development Bank Group, 75% of production and employment in East Africa is contributed by small-holder farming. Unfortunately, while progress has been made in other sectors such as trade and services, agriculture still lags behind.

The barriers to trade in AHI have led to LMICs markets being insufficiently attractive to sustain the case for investment in the development of targeted products and markets by multinational companies, which typically have research and development capacity. In entities that exist to gain their shareholders a return on equity, there is competition for capital which tends to be concentrated in the most profitable areas. Some of the barriers to trade in LMICs include incomplete market information which hinders the sizing of the opportunity, packaging not small enough to suit the predominant small-scale producer segment, presence of poor-quality products due to reasons such as counterfeiting, incomplete or inefficient distribution networks that don’t optimally reach producers, cold chain issues due to energy and infrastructure inadequacy, demand aggregation to sustain large scale manufacture, or development of veterinary service resources among others.

GALVmed through the implementation of its new 2030 commercial development strategy, is looking to work with partners to address some of these barriers through bespoke platforms, one of which being the Market Intelligence Platform (MIP).

The AHI’s current size and future potential in sub-Saharan Africa must be better understood. With a significant lack of data, the industry tends to rely on best estimates and use incomplete and unreliable information. This is augmented with substantial levels of guesswork and approximations. The situation is highly undesirable and harmful for two reasons:

One, the industry’s best estimates can be wildly inaccurate and tend to be significant underestimates. For example, a comprehensive, bottom-up assessment of the Kenyan market by AgNexus Africa has recently valued the market at $110M p.a. Previous industry best estimates had typically placed the market in the region of $45 – $50 M p.a.

Secondly, industry investments reflect the degree of confidence in the underlying markets. The need for more reliable data for the African market greatly amplifies the uncertainty around this market, and industry investments in the region consequently suffer.

The outcome of this information shortfall contributes to a significantly reduced animal health industry investment in Africa. Many manufacturers either avoid the region entirely or limit and drip-feed their investments. The consequences are felt not only in the manufacturer’s marketing and distribution activities but also in R&D, where it is extremely difficult to justify development projects for African-specific products. For African small-scale livestock producers (SSP), this has important and far-reaching consequences. Product availability, product quality, and product prices are all negatively impacted. This translates to poorer animal health outcomes, lower SSP livestock productivity, and poorer SSP livelihoods.

For these reasons, the proposed Market Intelligence Platform which aims at both sizing the current and estimating the future markets through techniques such as advanced analytics will enhance animal health market transparency, improve decision-making, reduce business risk, indirectly improve market efficiency, and promote access to animal health markets. This will contribute to a more developed industry in the coming years.

Written by Tom Osebe, Senior Manager of Commercial Development & Impact, Africa.

Using bespoke technologies could address market barriers in the small-scale livestock sector

Posted on by team galvmed

Small-scale farming account for a large part of the farming industry in low and middle-income countries. Despite small-scale livestock producers’ key role in the agricultural industry, existing market barriers and constraints hinder their opportunities to access high-quality animal health products and services.

Different market barriers are present across the entire value chain and deter animal health companies from investing in these markets. Some of the major barriers identified are lack of reliable market information and market entry, proper distribution mechanisms of products, scattered demand, or service provision.

As part of GALVmed’s Strategy2030, we are proposing a dedicated focus on collaborating with different partners and veterinary authorities to develop tailored technology platforms to bridge the gaps and overcome these market barriers. This suggested platform approach marks a significant change in GALVmed commercial development strategy. Whereas previously, a single commercial partner would spearhead a single initiative, the new approach will enable the entire industry to plug into a benefit from a single platform. By collectively addressing the key constraints facing the entire animal health value chain, the proposed platforms have the potential to deliver a comprehensive, financially sustainable solution that will unlock new opportunities for growth in the animal health industry.

With this proposed approach, the end goal is to significantly increase investment in the small-scale sector by the animal health industry, and improve market supply and adoption of key animal health products that will grant better opportunities to small-scale producers to protect their livestock and secure their livelihoods.

This blog was written as part of the campaign “Barriers to Animal Health Markets”

Case study: Strengthening farmers’ access to livestock inputs in Ghana

Posted on by team galvmed

It is estimated that livestock disease in Africa costs more than nine billion dollars per annum (Grace et al 2015), not including productivity losses or its impact on human health. Small-scale livestock producers lose an estimated 25% of their livestock every year to diseases.

In rural areas of Ghana, the majority of small-scale livestock producers rely on small agrovet shops for products like feed, vaccines and medicines. However, supply is not always guaranteed as agrovet shops routinely run out of stock, as they have to travel to big cities like Accra or Kumasi to source products. This leaves farmers at risk of losing their livestock.

Agrovets are key in the agricultural value chain as they also provide ‘extension services’, where veterinary professionals visit farmers to treat their animals.

The Global Alliance for Livestock Veterinary Medicines (GALVmed) partnered with last mile veterinary distribution company Cowtribe Technology Ltd to create a new company called TribeCo to help agrovets keep their shops well-stocked. GALVmed is providing funding for the project, and manages the project to ensure its objectives are realised.

TribeCo sources vaccines, medicines and feed from local and international manufacturers and distributes them to a network of rural agrovets to ensure a steady supply. This is done with guidance and supervision by local veterinary officials.  Tribecovet has already signed up a number of agrovets across Ghana who are now better equipped to access products.

“Buying the products from the south [of Ghana] which was difficult for us [until] we met TribeCo. They are now doing free delivery for us. Anytime we want them they are available for us”. 

Mahamudu – Veterinary medicines dealer

TribeCo uses an app called Zhulia to simplify the supply chain and help agrovets to efficiently manage their retail services. Agrovet dealers can access products from multiple suppliers and monitor their stocks to avoid running out of products. TribeCo then delivers the product to shops.

“At first we used to get our supplies every month. But with the coming of TribeCo, when you just use the Zhulia app, when you do it in the morning by evening time your goods will arrive. I think that has helped us so much and because they bring the goods free of charge… That has helped the lives of so many farmers, both livestock and then poultry.” 

Margaret – Veterinary medicines dealer

By providing uninterrupted access to livestock health products, GALVmed expects to see a significant increase in small-scale livestock producers’ productivity by avoiding economic losses caused by infectious diseases, improved livelihoods, and availability of affordable animal protein. GALVmed will monitor the impact of the project through surveys and collection of sales data.

“With the coming of TribeCo in my life it has improved a lot the lives of farmers, because there’s decrease in disease outbreaks. This has generated into increase in productivity. It has brought money into the pocket of farmers.” 

Margaret – Veterinary medicines dealer

News by Action for Animal Health. Click here to see more case studies.