A Cognified Distributed System for Livestock Diseases: Case of Pastoral Communities in Kajiado County, Kenya.

Abstract

In Kenya, the livestock sector experience an unexpected outbreak of contagious diseases that led to the loss of animals and decreased productivity in live cattle. This impacts the livelihoods of pastoral communities, mainly the youth and women, who solemnly depend on this sector as their primary source of income through selling live cattle, extra meat, and milk. Traditional methods used to predict the reoccurrence of contagious diseases are no longer accurate due to unpredicted weather patterns caused by the effect of climate change and associated risks. This calls for accurate, timely, and location-specific advisories on priority livestock diseases such as Rift Valley Fever (RVF), Bovine Ephemeral Fever (BEF), and Capripox virus to prevent losses incurred by farmers. The objective of this study was to test cognified distributed technology in handling datadriven models to generate data-based evidence used to predict the subsequent chances of disease reoccurrence. The study was done in Kajiado county with a sample size of sixty-five (65) livestock farmers. A constructive research approach was used to develop custom-made surveillance and reporting prototype that leverages high-performance computing resources and real-time weather forecast data from remote satellites. Results from the prototype show a tandem between the number of infections reported and the predicted chances of occurrence generated by the model. Cognified distributed system can handle massive volumes of data coming in different types, formats, magnitudes, and locations. When the incoming data is well formatted and compared with the historical data pattern, the computing resources can perform pattern and matching analysis to determine the chances of disease reoccurrence. Kenya as a country stands to gain by adopting this technology in veterinary epidemiology. The technology will guide agricultural stakeholders, including policymakers, on early response mechanisms and the prioritization of vaccination programs. This further extends to improving food security, a pillar of the Government's Big Four agenda.