Mobile-based Decision Support System for Poultry Farmers: A Case of Tanzania

Abstract

Poultry farms in Tanzania are characterized by inadequate management practices which are mainly caused by the lack of adequate systems to guide the small-scale poultry farmers in decision making. It is well-established that information is a key factor in making effective decisions in numerous sectors including poultry farming. Furthermore, various researchers have identified the use of mobile decision support tools to be an effective way of aiding farmers in making informed decisions. In this paper, we present a mobile-based decision support system that will aid rural and small-scale poultry farmers in Tanzania to obtain reliable information that is crucial for making proper decisions in their farming activities. In this context, a mobile-based decision support system was achieved through a mobile application integrated with a chatbot assistant to provide a solution to various poultry farming-related problems and simplify their decision-making process. We used a data-driven approach towards developing an informational chatbot assistant for Android smartphones that is capable of interacting with small-scale poultry farmers through natural conversations by utilizing the RASA framework.

Digital Technology and Services for Sustainable Agriculture in Tanzania: A Literature Review

“…Generally, the target areas are agricultural information dissemination by agricultural research institutions (ARIs) and extension services to farmers and farmers organizations (FOs) [13,14]. The increased use of mobile technologies also triggered projects on mobile farm services such as Global System for Mobile Association (GSMA) "Mobile for Development" projects and mobile applications to support farmers in different value chains [14], mobile application for poultry farmers [72], and mobile decision support systems [73,74]. Furthermore, the design of farmers digital advisory service called "Ushauri" to provide access to context-specific information from extension agents increases capabilities in decisionmaking and adaptation to changing environments [75].…”

“…Access to market and market information mFarming mobile service [43,78] Agriculture knowledge and information for decision making Lack of information, farming knowledge and extension services mAgri tracker GSMA Mobile for Development projects [14] Android mobile application for poultry farmers [72] A web and Mobile-Based Farmers' Advisory System for extension services [41,58] A mobile Decision Support System for access to climatic information [73] A mobile and web-based extension support system for horticulture farmers [74] "Ushauri" digital advisory service [75] Source: Author's compilation.…”

Milchbot: App to Support the Process of Feeding and Caring for Dairy Cows in Peru

“…Its components are the following: (a) Interface, which manages the inputs and outputs of the devices that make the queries to the chatbot, allowing the communication between the user and the chatbot to be through messages or audio, and is carried out through mobile or desktop devices (Rooein, et al, 2020); (b) Controller, which receives the user's message and processes it using natural language, and then classifies it into different intentions that it has been taught to identify (Vijayalaksh, et al, 2019); (c) Dialog manager, divided into two domains, one generic to generate dialogues that resemble a natural conversation, and another specific, to answer specific queries to the user (Shapa, et al, 2021); and (d) User Controller, which sends the answer to the user, which can be a text, images, videos, etc. (Ekanayake et al, 2020).…”

The diversity of smallholder chicken farming in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania reveals a range of underlying production constraints

“…First, 86% of the livestock keeping households in the country own chickens ( MLDF, 2015 ). About 80% of the chickens are owned by women who have control over decisions on sales and consumption of chicken meat and eggs ( Galiè et al, 2015 ; Tavenner et al, 2019 ; Shapa et al, 2021 ). Second, chickens are sold alive and do not necessarily need central slaughterhouses and cold chains.…”