The Chief Executive of Cowtribe Africa, a mobile technology company based in Tamale, Peter Awin has called for public action to curtail animal disease outbreaks in the country.
According to Mr. Awin, the health of livestock is as important as human health owing to the close relation of animals and human beings, and given the communicable nature of the animal disease, it was about time the public turned its attention to the livestock sector.
In an interview at the sideline of the ‘Ghana Startup Awards,’ he revealed that many diseases affecting human health can largely be contracted from the consumption or engagement with livestock.
He explained that Zoonotic disease such as Tuberculosis, brucellosis, Anthrax, sleeping sickness amongst others can be contracted by humans when animals are not cured of these diseases immediately.
“What is even more dangerous for those of us in town is that, some of these livestock owners would only sell them off for meat use when they are at the point of death and by which time they had injected so much of antibiotics into them.
They do so because they barely have access to veterinarians. But when a subscribed farmer calls our hotline, we are able to send a veterinarian closer to where the farmer called from within a turnaround time of 24hours,” he stated.
He lamented why successive governments and non-governmental organizations over the years overly concentrated on the crop sector yet it records marginal decline in GDP year on year.
For many rural farmers, he said, livestock is their safety net when their crops fail due to various agronomic reasons or climate variation.
Cowtribe Africa was adjudged one of the top 100 startups in Ghana by the African Network of Entrepreneurs (TANOE), organizers of the Premium Bank Start up awards.
The annual award which is in its second year seeks to honour Ghana’s young entrepreneurs and start-up businesses for their diverse contribution to Ghana’s economy.
Cowtribe Africa is the only technology company to have been nominated from the three regions in the north. The company is a social enterprise in Tamale that leverages mobile technology to provide timely and quality veterinary services to livestock farmers in rural areas.
Since the launch of its platform in May 2016 it has been subscribed by over two thousand five hundred (25,000) service users who get access to a 24/7 call center, veterinarians, broadcast messages on vaccinations, disease outbreaks, husbandry amongst a host of services.
Several media houses such as Business and Financial Times, TV3 Business, Pulse Ghana, Joy Business were also recognized for their contribution in highlighting and promoting the activities of startup companies in Ghana.
