Zimbabwean veterinarian develops feed-mix app to benefit livestock farmers

By Wallace Mawire [caption id="attachment_32782" align="alignleft" width="294"] Maxwell Munyangani[/caption] A young local veterinarian surgeon, Maxwell Munyangani has developed a mobile application to calculate feed mix ratios set to benefit local farmers and from other parts of the world. Munyangani, who is Vice Principal at Mazowe Veterinary College launched the mobile application titled Maxifarm and his website:www.pafarm.co.zw on 8 August 2016. A mobile application is installed in one’s phone or smartphone and enables interactivity with the gadget for one’s benefit. “The mobile application is mainly intended for farmers and allows them to calculate feed mix ratios at farm level. It allows farmers to carry out specific tasks like feed formulation on their own,”Munyangani said. He said   the mobile app has been on the market for about a month now and has attracted at least 114 users worldwide so far. He added that the uptake has been encouraging and users have registered from countries like Nigeria, Zimbabwe, India, Indonesia, Zambia, Uganda and Tanzania, just to mention a few. Munyangani said that the app which is free to farmers is designed to take value chain integration offering extended services to other players such as marketing and product advertising. “The app gives opportunity to farmers at farm level to calculate their feed for livestock. Feed is a major cost of running a livestock enterprise. This will also help farmers to reduce production costs,” Munyangani said. The aim is to facilitate increase in production for agricultural enterprises, through reduction of costs and increasing efficiency and productivity. The app will also benefit other agricultural professionals and is easy to use with only three tabs to operate. Munyangani said that he received training from Muzinda Hub who mentored him on aspects like android development. This has enabled him to develop the app which will also soon be upgraded with other user features.