eBird: Developing a telephonic poultry trading system for smallholder livelihood promotion and animal health surveillance

Place: Thailand • Dates: 2010-12 • Partner: FAO 

Project Summary

In response to an increased awareness of disease risk and livelihood implications within the informal poultry supply chains of Southeast Asia, we developed a dynamic mobile-telephone based system that provides a safe and efficient mechanism for directly connecting poultry farmers with vendors.

The automated system facilitates trades by directly connecting potential buyers and sellers via mobile phones. The platform allows for technical outreach as well as passive poultry health surveillance, via detention of abnormalities in transaction volumes and farmer reporting. In addition, because of inbuilt traceability, it also offers scope for active surveillance through blood testing of birds passing through the system.

The goals of the system are to increase producer incomes, improve food quality, and mitigate public health risks from livestock trading. 

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