App for fostering native livestock to be popularised

Centre for Academy Industry Interface ( CAII), Holy Cross College, and Climate Smart Technologies (CST) have signed a memorandum of understanding for dissemination of the latter’s android-based application saving Indian livestock breeds among rearers and a suite of 15 other smart farmer Apps in villages in Mannachanallur block.

The ‘Save Indian Breeds’ App provides access to photographs and videos that would enable potential buyers of native breeds of livestock to save substantially by bypassing middlemen, Jeevanandam Duraisamy, Founder and CEO of of the start-up told mediapersons.

The free App in envisages reversing trend of dwindling Indian buffaloes, cows, goats and sheep breeds. The App is designed in a simple way for farmers to collect geo-tagged photos and videos to locate breeders who still have the prized breeds’ germplasm across the country to enable collective conservation and restoration before it is too late.

The revival of jallikattu and rekla race in Tamil Nadu, kambala in Karnataka and cart race in Maharashtra had reinforced the importance of native breeds, he said.

The start-up’s smart farmer apps meant to help farmers to calculate expenditure for raising crops and determine the fair price for produce are to be validated by MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, under a memorandum of understanding.

The MoU with the extension department of the Holy Cross College envisages transferring benefit of these applications directly to farmers in villages under their purview. Under the MoU, students will work with the rural communities for execution of the CST projects funded by government departments, lead agencies, United Nations, international financial institutions, bilateral and multilateral agencies INGOs and NGOs.

The MoU also provides for developing customised android Apps meeting academic requirements of the college departments.

The CST will share expertise in areas of social work, life sciences, IT, ICT, development studies, and curriculum development in line with global trends, besides engaging the college students for field work, block placement, and provide fellowships in applied research

The HCC and CST have also planned to jointly establish start-up incubators for rural technologies, and agri IT.

Smart Farmer, Smart SHG, Smart Village, Smart Farmer Producer Organisation, Smart Coconut, Smart Crop, Smart Cattle, Save Indian Breeds, Smart Farm Machinery, Smart Labor, Smart Fisher, Save mangroves, and Smart Bamboo Farmer are among the other Apps in the kitty of CST.