County rolls-out electronic voucher system for livestock farmers
Nyeri County Government has unveiled an electronic voucher (E-voucher) system, to help farmers easily access subsidized animal health and breed improvement services.
The system dubbed Animal Health and Breed Improvement Delivery Model is similar to the E-subsidy fertilizer program that currently allows farmers to access fertilizer and other farm inputs at a discounted price from the government.
The Animal Health and Breed Improvement Delivery Model was developed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development in collaboration with value chain players in the sector and it seeks to enhance productivity in dairy and beef production.
The Acting County Director of Veterinary Services, Dr Anthony Muguro, said that the County Government is banking on the model to strengthen the delivery of extension services across the County.
Dr Muguro said that the Technical Committee has already developed guidelines, training modules, and an integrated e-voucher system to support the implementation of the program.
He said that livestock farmers will first be registered under the E-voucher platform in order to benefit from the subsidized services, which will include animal vaccination, artificial insemination, animal feeds, herd health, and identification services.
“The programme encourages all the farmers to be linked to a co-operative. One of the expected outputs is that we will identify one co-operatives per ward from each of the 30 wards, which we will use to provide vaccines, semen and other inputs to the livestock farmers,” he said.
Dr Muguro said that the animal registration is based on the Muzzle technology, which uses the biometric pattern of the livestock’s snout to create a unique identifier.
After successful registration, an e-voucher will be issued to the farmer who will subsequently use it to redeem the services from an approved Animal Health Technician.
The Acting Director said that the model’s first priority will be provision of vaccines with key focus being placed on eradication of Foot and Mouth disease.
He said that the County is targeting to inoculate 90 per cent of the 104,044 cattle in the County.
“For the vaccination process, we will use Mifugo360 SuperApp,a livestock registration, health and, traceability platform. The application has in-built modules for biometric ID, geo-location, information on vaccinations available and also provides information on the financial services available for the participating farmer,” stated Muguro.
The Department of veterinary services has so far established a Technical Committee which will develop guidelines, training modules, and an integrated e-voucher system to support the roll-out of the program.
“Each of the 30 wards will have a vaccination team comprising of seven animal health technicians, one veterinary surgeon, a veterinary surgeon who will report to the ward steering committee and County Director of Veterinary Services who will act as the overall supervisor,” he said.
The vaccination component of project will be funded through support from Enterprise Development Grant(EDG). The vaccination Investment budget has been set at Sh 160 per animal.
The amount will be paid to various service providers as guided by e-voucher vaccination financing model guidelines.
The individual farmer will contribute Sh 50 for every animal that will be vaccinated. Additionally, the EDG also will support the cold chain infrastructure for vaccines storage with guidelines being provided by the County Veterinary Services Department.
Ends… Agriculture/ Obure/Lang’at
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DSC 3121:A veterinary officer in Nyeri County vaccinates a cow at the Thung’ari cattle dip in Lusoi, Nyeri County in 2024. Nyeri County government has launched a new program that will help farmers access subsidized animal health and breed improvement services through an electronic voucher (E-voucher) system.
