The move aims to facilitate access to the vaccines in regions where they would otherwise be inaccessible, causing farmers a lot of harm.

Cowtribe is a digital solution developed by a Ghanaian startup.  It helps farmers, in rural areas, buy animal vaccines by either dialing a USSD code, sending an SMS, or reaching out to a network of community agents. Since its launch in 2017, the startup behind the solution has raised close to US$1.4 million to support its growth.

When using the solution for the first time, farmers have to register by dialing the dedicated USSD and following the guideline. This is a simple yet effective solution since most Africans are already used to USSD technologies, which they use almost daily to check their airtime balance, buy airtime or carry out mobile money transactions.

In 2018, Cowtribe claimed over 30,000 farmers served in 120 villages, and more than 9,000 vaccine requests processed for over US$100,000 worth of vaccines sold. For Cowtribe co-founder Peter Awin, more efforts need to be made because African farmers are still losing more than US$3 billion to animal diseases.

"While farmers need a constant supply of safe vaccines that could prevent these losses, most of them live in rural and hard-to-reach places outside of the functional delivery radius. […] Providers lack visibility to efficiently coordinate the delivery of services to these farmers. Ultimately, over 70 percent of livestock vaccines manufactured never make it to the farmers who need them most," he said.

This year, the startup is working to reach a million farmers with quality and affordable vaccines. It also plans to expand into the Malian and Burkinabe markets. In 2018, it won the national phase of the Seedstars World competition.

Adoni Conrad Quenum