Shurokkha is an ICT-based tele-consultation service that provides veterinary service at the fingertips of marginalized farmers, with the intent to ensure food and financial security to smallholder cattle farmers in Bangladesh. Through the Shurokkha platform, farmers receive expert consultation remotely from veterinary experts in response to cattle health and husbandry-related queries. This is enabled through our smartphone app operated by farmers themselves or intermediaries who are typically local non-qualified para-veterinarians to link with remote veterinary experts who provides cattle diagnosis and prescriptions electronically for a fraction of the cost of on-site veterinary consultation.

The main objective of the Shurokkha solution is to improve productivity and profitability of livestock farmers by enabling an on-demand access to tele-consultation service from trained veterinarians. Since 2012, Shurokkha has been providing services through a partnership model to multiple NGOs and government organizations serving 12,000+ farmers.

Through the use of Shurokkha we have managed to achieve a high recovery rate from cattle sickness (89%), with 80% of farmers reporting improved health and production (milk or meat) and hence improved quality of life for farmers. In addition, our subscribed Shurokkha Para-vets have been able to increase their monthly average income by 60% compared to the past.

http://www.mpower-social.com/livestock

• Bangladesh

• Remote and rural communities
• Local Paravets and Community Livestock Service Providers

Since Shurokkha is a virtual teleconsultation platform, the service can be replicated conveniently in other countries which have large number of smallholder farmers rearing cattle. In fact, we are in the process of replicating this in Mali in collaboration with a Belgium-based animal health product company named Kela. Nowadays increasing number of rural population are getting access to smartphones and low-cost Internet connectivity, which is creating a strong foundation for services like Shurokkha.

To expand to an international audience, the adaptation of the Shurokkha application for other countries would be around:

- customization of the application, web dashboards, message and alerts in local language
- customization of the forms and the algorithms to suit the context of the locality

We are now in the process of marketing the Shurokkha service through a subscription model (per consultation or monthly subscription basis) to a wide market base within Bangladesh by offering the service to para-vets, small-holder farmers or their family members with access to smartphones, animal health product companies which employs para-vets of their own, and also government entities and NGOs which have field officers providing advisory services to farmers. The number of users of Shurokkha service is on the rise and growing in Bangladesh.

We are also offering the service internationally and our first client is a Belgian-based global animal health product company called Kela, with which we will be jointly deploying

AL C3 Access to Information and Knowledge Shurokkha enables smallholder cattle farmers in Bangladesh to access quality veterinary advisory at a fraction of the cost and time compared to traditional veterinary services. This has helped farmers avoid the livelihood risks and costs associated with cattle mortality. AL C7 ICT applications: benefits in all aspects of life: e-Agriculture Through accessing quality veterinary services, farmers are able to avoid livestock sickness and mortality risks compared to non-Shurokkha farmers, which enables them to have livestock productivity and profitability. This in turn enables farming households to access improved nutritional, educational access and other cross-cutting benefits. AL C4 Capacity Building Paravets enlisted under the Shurokkha project are first provided training on use of the ICT fetures and as they provide Shurokkha consultancies to more farmers, they build their own technical knowledge base and ability to act as their community livestock health service providers.