In a pastoralist household, losing a single cow isn’t just an inconvenience, it’s an economic blow. For many families, livestock are their savings, their status, and their future.
So when one young man’s family lost a cow and spent over two weeks searching, the frustration wasn’t just about time. It was about how much hadn’t changed. Despite centuries of livestock keeping, many farmers still rely on memory, scars, and intuition to monitor their herds. It works until it doesn’t.
Afya ya Mnyama Digital, through the Mnyama Check Platform, was born from that moment. A platform built to track animal health, reproduction, and movement, so that the people who depend on livestock can protect what matters most.
Livestock keeping is a way of life across Tanzania. But with that, life comes challenges:
- Lost animals, misidentified or stolen, due to poor record keeping
- Untracked diseases, leading to avoidable deaths
- Missed reproduction cycles, which cost farmers their future income
- And rising conflict between pastoralist and agricultural communities, triggered by uncontrolled livestock movement
Despite the cultural and economic value of animal keeping, most farmers don’t have the tools to run it like a modern business. That’s where Mnyama Check Platform steps in with a smart, accessible solution grounded in real-world experience.
The founder, a veterinary student from Sokoine University of Agriculture, didn’t start with funding or a lab. He started with lived frustration. He understood that if you can’t track your livestock, you can’t truly protect them or profit from them.
In 2022, the idea met opportunity.
Ifakara Innovation Hub (IIH) met the team behind Afya ya Mnyama (Mnyama Check) and saw potential: not just for one family, but for communities across Tanzania. With a pressing challenge clearly defined, IIH offered support to transform the idea into a scalable solution.
- Seed funding of $5,000 USD
- Technical support to build the platform’s frontend and backend
- Mentorship on product development, testing, and user integration
- Business coaching and networking opportunities
This investment made it possible to develop the Mnyama Check platform, a complementary mobile tool that lets farmers store and retrieve health records, movement logs, and breeding data in real-time.
The Mnyama Check has already proven what’s possible.
Early tests with households and institutions showed an overwhelming need and appreciation for a system that simplifies how farmers manage livestock. Some farmers asked for more refined visuals. Institutions prioritized efficiency. Everyone saw the value.
The platform has helped users:
- Track animal health over time
- Maximize mating seasons and boost breeding success
- Recover lost livestock more easily
- Build confidence in their livestock businesses
“It helps me keep everything in one place. I no longer have to guess when my animals should breed again or worry about forgetting which one was sick,” shared one early adopter in Morogoro.
Like any young venture, Mnyama Check platform has faced challenges limited infrastructure, changing digital access, and the slow pace of behavior change. But the team has pushed forward.
With continued support and refinement, the platform is now ready to:
📍 Scale to more communities
📍 Integrate advanced features using smart sensors
📍 Train youth and women to become data agents and field support
This solution isn’t just a product. It’s a promise: that rural economies deserve smart tools, and that technology can preserve tradition without compromising the future.
At Ifakara Innovation Hub, we invest in ideas that change lives and the Mnyama Check Platform is proof that solutions built by those closest to the problem are often the most powerful. These are the solutions that we are looking forward to address the problems through grassroot innovation. Turning personal challenges into greater good for with the solutions that really improve the greater socio-economic wellbeing of rural livelihoods.
Watch how their story unfolds: https://youtu.be/1JZg1jT2bT8
