Benefits of LITS

RippleNami’s Livestock Identification and Traceability System (LITS) provides extensive benefits to farmers, communities and ministries, including:

1. Traceability

Traceablity is the ability to trace an animal from its birth to its death along with all the interventions that occurred in between such as vaccinations, treatments and movements between regions. It shows where an animal has been, and whether it may have been exposed to diseases like Foot and Mouth. This type of traceability is mandatory to export to lucrative overseas markets such as the Arabian Peninsula and the European Union. It provides an opportunity for farmers to access markets that they would otherwise not be able to tap into.

2. Theft Prevention

The ability to identify livestock results in a dramatic reduction of stock theft. Law enforcement units can scan animals and positively identify ownership. This allows law enforcement to effectively monitor and control stock theft and limit the losses incurred by farmers.

3. Loans 

LITS provides a means for the banking sector to grant loans to farmers using livestock as security and registering a lien on the animal(s). Loans given to farmers in this way provides the ability to unlock the value of their livestock without having to sell their animals. Farmers can use their registered livestock to get bank loans for much needed farming inputs, capital expenditure or emergency funding.

4. Disease Mitigation and Management

RippleNami’s LITS facilitates the flow of data in real-time from the field to a central reporting database. County and National officials can immediately and automatically be notified when an outbreak occurs, and can visualize the outbreak in RippleNami’s mapping platform. This facilitates a more targeted and effective response against trans-boundary and trade sensitive livestock diseases.

5. Farm to Fork Traceability

LITS increases transparency in the supply chain from producers to consumers. LITS data can be incorporated into labels embedded with QR or bar codes that consumers can scan with their mobile phones. Consumers can then be presented with information such as the originating farm, the age of the animal and where it was slaughtered. This can help to elevate producers’ brands, and mitigate impacts to sales in times of disease outbreak elsewhere.