AniMeta AgriTech improves the dairy farming community
Listed among seven in-revenue start-ups in agriculture and allied livelihoods under Cisco and Social Alpha’s Krishi Mangal second edition cohort, AniMeta AgriTech was selected due to its unique appeal. Cisco’s Krishi Mangal is a scale-up accelerator program which supports agritech start-ups to design solutions for and support smallholder farmers and was launched in 2021.
AniMeta AgriTech is a phygital platform that offers dairy farmers with ‘end-to-end solution to enhance dairy farm productivity’. Founded in April 2022 by Dr. Vijayakumar Ramalingam, Dr. N Punniamurthy, techie Shenbaga Kannan & Janani Santhamoorthy in Coimbatore, AniMeta AgriTech has established its operational footprint across the fertile landscapes of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. Offering animal healthcare services to dairy farmers, it connects farmers with veterinary healthcare professionals through an innovative disease- diagnosis platform and solve cattle health issues recommending ethnoveterinary products. This technology interface enables seamless interaction and knowledge exchange while addressing the needs of dairy farmers.
Based on International Dairy Journal the Indian dairy industry is flourishing globally, with the country ranking first in milk production, contributing a whopping 22% of global milk production. Indian subcontinent contributes 5% to the national economy, employing approximately 80 million people in the dairy industry, directly or indirectly. According to a report by the Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry, and Dairying, milk production in the country has grown at a compound annual growth rate of about 6.2 % to reach 210 million tonnes in 2020-21 from 146.31 million tonnes in 2014-15. With the growing industry AniMeta leads with the vision of helping the country’s dairy farmers rear animals, produce milk, and live better.
At its core, AniMeta AgriTech is an ethnoveterinary animal healthcare service company, which has bespoke solutions uniquely tailored to suit each farmer and their requirements. Their unique approach towards cattle health includes educating its customers with informative videos on rearing practices and effective feeding techniques. The doctors onboarded on Animeta’s platform recommends ready to use ethnoveterinary medicines products available under the brand name of YourFarm. Their products treat more than 35 diseases like mastitis, diarrhoea, fever, worms, digestive disorders, etc., which eventually helps in improving animal health and thereafter productivity.
Talking about some of their products like ‘Herbolact’ which is used to address mastitis inflammation in the udder tissue of cattle’s mammary glands, Surender, a dairy farmer from Ganeshpuram, Coimbatore said, “After using Herbolact from YourFarm, we have seen a visible difference in our cow that was affected with mastitis. The community resource person from the company educated us on its know hows. We also watch their videos on YouTube through the app.”
Among the various challenges that AniMeta addresses, lack of awareness of scientific feeding and health management in animal husbandry practices tops the list. Talking about their experiences, dairy farmers Jeevanandam & Tamilselvi from Annur block, Coimbatore, said, “We have lost two cows due to untimely assistance of veterinary services during the time of delivery of calf and some unknown disease. Sometimes we don’t have any option but to depend on unqualified health care provider or chemists for treating the animal, and this increases our expenses towards their healthcare. Cattle are a very important part of our lives.”
Pic : Left to Right: Jeevanandam, his wife Tamilselvi, calf affected with worm disease and Vijayakumar Ramalingam
Many farmers have limited knowledge of appropriate feeding practices as well as find it difficult to provide right type of concentrated feed for their cattle because of unavailability. Hence, they rely on feeding practices that is widespread among their peers locally. AniMeta provides easily accessible information of right feeding practices that improves cattle health and hence productivity.
Secondly, it plays an important role in educating dairy farmers about scientific management methods and best practices in farms to reduce disease incidence. Due to the lack of timely veterinary services at the farm gate level, farmers either prefer self-medication or rely on unqualified health care provider for their cattle. These not only increase animal healthcare costs but also leads to indiscriminate usage of antimicrobials in food-producing animals. AniMeta provides solutions to reduce such issues.
AniMeta helps dairy farmers accessing the knowledge of best practices in animal-rearing and milk-production. They aid dairy farmers by reducing veterinary costs by 70% and increasing the cure rate in animals by 82% with indigenous solutions, which enables increased milk production by up to 20%, and decreased usage of antibiotics in animals.
The second edition of Cisco’s Krishi Mangal in partnership with Social Alpha, is an 18-month market access and scale-up accelerator program which will support seven in-revenue start-ups in agriculture & allied livelihoods. With assistance from the program, AniMeta plans to serve at least 20,000 farmers over the next year and scale its operations in six districts of Tamil Nadu. They plan to use at least 65% of the grant money for sales, marketing, and business development activities. AniMeta AgriTech pioneers end-to-end health and consultation services driven by a commitment to farmers’ welfare, combining technology and expertise to propel dairy farming to new horizons.
Source : PTI News Oct 3rd 2023 (Disclaimer: The above press release comes to you under an arrangement with Mediawire. PTI takes no editorial responsibility for the same.)