Nigeria: Researchers Develop App to Address cattle rustling

Nigerian researchers have developed a software application solutions for cattle rustling. The app is designed to address the frequent deadly clashes between herders and host communities in the country.

According to the researchers, the app is developed in such a way that if embraced and deployed, it might signal the dead-end of repeated herders/farmer's crises.

NimTrack, the app, developed by a group of researchers, when put to use, is capable of tracking animal movement.

The app was the product of a research group, The SmartAgro Research Cluster made up of scientists from the Department of Computer Science, Federal University of Agriculture (FUNAAB), Abeokuta, Ogun State, in collaboration with researchers from other Nigerian universities.

The app was presented at a one-day sensitization workshop, which held at the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Ogun State, with the theme: "Intelligent animal tracking and pastural management", and was declared open by the Vice-Chancellor of FUNAAB, Prof Felix Salako, who was represented by Prof Biodun Badmus of the Department of Physics, FUNAAB.

"NimTrack" was borne out of a passion to aid agriculture with ICT. The journey began six years ago when Prof Isah of the College of Animal Science was engaged in a discussion on how the two can collaborate."NimTrack is an intelligent animal tracking and management device. It tracks and also enables farmers to set a geofence for the animals as they seek for pasture and if any one of them goes out of the range that was set, the farmer receives an alert in this respect said, Prof Isah.

The Principal Investigator of the NimTrack, Dr. Oluwasefunmi Arogundade of the Department of Computer Science, FUNAAB, titled her lecture "Development of an Internet of Things based solution for animal tracking: Pastural management made easy.

She took about 170 farmers who were a participant in the journey that led to the animal tracking device named NimTrack and how it serves as an improvement to some of the previous approaches in pastural management.

Arogundade said she wanted the farmers to experience what they have heard and read about the tracking of animals and that is possible through the solution her team is presenting.

"Currently, the solution provides the following benefits: Nimtrack provides the interaction between the farmers and their tracked animals; it keeps up with the received location and provides a timely and visual presentation of the most current locations of their animals; previous locations of the tracked animals can also be viewed by the farmers said, Dr. Oluwasefunmi Arogundade.