CARI mulls mobile phone app for poultry farmers
The app will have all information on poultry birds -- from quail to chicken -- and the methodology to farm them.
To provide a one-stop- solution to poultry farmers and entrepreneurs, the Central Avian Research Institute (CARI) has begun preparations to develop a mobile phone application for them.
“We intend to put all the information -- ranging from types of bird specie to their markets rates -- on this app, so that farmers can easily access it,” said AB Mandal, director CARI. The institute was directed to do so by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research(ICAR) -- an umbrella organisation of the central government that heads education and research in the field of Agriculture.
Working on the directions, CARI has started formulating the basic structure of the desired app. At present, it is working on the content.
Sandeep Saran, the principal scientist at the institute who is working on the project calls it an “extended brochure of research work done by the experts at the institute, which can be used in poultry business too”. “The app will have all information on poultry birds -- from quail to chicken -- and the methodology to farm them. We also intend to put out information about the process involved in the business, such as, meat processing,” he said.
Another crucial element of the app will be its ingeniously developed ‘Make Feed’ software. The software gives information on the quantity of feed to be provided to a bird as per its age and the availability of feed material. “At present, the programme comes in a compact disk (CD) and can only be used on a personal computer. Once its is integrated with the app, farmers will be able to access it on their mobile phones,” said the director.
The app will have 16 sections. “Apart from poultry production and processing, the app will also have advisory and market sections, where the institute will issue advisories regarding change in weather, vaccination, etc, as well as the market rates,” said Saran.
Apart from developing content, the institute is also searching for developers to encode the app for mobile phone users.