FarmTrace

FarmTrace is a low-cost microbial fingerprinting kit and mobile app that enables smallholder farmers to monitor antimicrobial resistance in farm environments. By generating farm-specific resistance data, farmers can make informed changes to contain resistance spread, protecting health, livelihoods and sustainability.

Jamila Kakuba, an experienced Veterinarian with 10 years of service at the Marangu District Veterinary Office, where she oversees animal health and provides advice to local smallholder farmers.

The spread of antimicrobial resistance poses a serious threat to public health, livestock and the environment in Tanzania. According to the WHO, over 451,551 new cases of drug-resistant tuberculosis occurred in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2020 alone, accounting for 30% of the global total. Drug-resistant Salmonella, E. coli and other bacteria have also become increasingly common in food animals, agriculture and the environment in the region. 

In Tanzania specifically, over 50% of clinical microbial isolates tested from various hospitals have shown resistance to first-line antibiotics. Surveys in the Marangu district of Kilimanjaro, where over 70% of the population relies on mixed smallholder farming for their livelihoods, have found that more than 50% of E. coli isolated from small-scale dairy farms are resistant to common antibiotics. 

The misuse and overuse of antibiotics in agriculture poses a major driver of this growing problem. Approximately 80% of all antibiotics sold in Tanzania are used in livestock production, often without proper oversight. This has led to high levels of drug resistance in pathogens affecting both animals and humans. If left unaddressed, antimicrobial resistance could undermine public health and devastate local agriculture in Tanzania. 

FarmTrace primarily serves the over 350,000 smallholder livestock farmers in the Kilimanjaro region of Tanzania. Specifically, we are initially targeting the 50,000 dairy farmers in Marangu district where our research was conducted. 

Through our formative work engaging over 300 farmers across 20 villages, we found that a lack of actionable information on antimicrobial resistance is a major challenge faced by these communities. Specifically, 95% of farmers reported using antibiotics in their livestock without guidance on resistant patterns in their local environment. 

To address this need, FarmTrace directly engages farmers in on-farm testing and data collection. So far we have collaborated with 25 farmers to design, test and refine our low-cost microbial fingerprinting kits and data collection tools. Moving forward, we will engage an additional 50 farmers annually to participate in iterative user testing and provide ongoing feedback to ensure the solution remains optimized for the resource constraints faced in these rural settings.

By directly involving farmers from solution design through implementation, FarmTrace aims to empower over 50,000 farmers with individualized data and recommendations to sustainably safeguard their livestock's health and livelihoods over the coming decade.

FarmTrace aims to generate several important public goods through its work:

Data & Knowledge: Our integrated on-farm/off-farm AMR surveillance datasets and epidemiological analyses will be openly shared to inform evidence-based policymaking globally. Regional reports on resistance trends, correlations and intervention recommendations will advance scientific understanding of AMR transmission dynamics in marginalized agrarian communities. 

Tools & Technology: We envision freely publishing detailed protocols enabling other communities to reproduce low-cost, easy-to-use versions of our microbial fingerprinting kits and mobile data platform through open-source models. This will strengthen AMR monitoring capacity worldwide, especially in resource-poor settings.

Behaviour Change: By training and supporting farmers as stewards implementing customized on-farm changes to combat resistances identified, our participatory approach pilots replicable community mobilization techniques applying emerging technologies and big data for enhancing global public health security through behavior interventions at scale. 

FarmTrace is committed to openly sharing all non-proprietary data, technical know-how, methodologies and lessons learned to benefit vulnerable populations everywhere working towards containment of this pressing threat.

FarmTrace aims to have tangible impact on the target population of 350,000 smallholder dairy farmers in Kilimanjaro, Tanzania through improved antimicrobial stewardship and alternative livelihood strategies.

By directly involving over 50,000 farmers in our first phase of community-based AMR monitoring and intervention, we expect to see measurable changes including:

- Reduction in injudicious antibiotic usage on individual farms aligned with resistance hotspot reports, shown through follow-up surveys to decrease by 15-20% within 2 years. 

- Corresponding decrease in antimicrobial resistance gene detection in on-farm environments by 10-15% according to epidemiological trend analyses of repeated sampling over the initial 5-year intervention period.

- Increased incomes for 1,000 farmers adopting non-antibiotic alternatives like rotational grazing or manure composting enterprises recommended through FarmTrace, estimated based on MFarm project results to boost average annual earnings by 20-30% within 3 years. 

These outcomes will strengthen rural livelihoods and public health security through empowering farmers as active participants in the fight against AMR using open access, actionable data and relevant solutions tailored for sustainability at scale.

Over the next year, FarmTrace aims to scale our impact as follows:

- Complete our 6 month pilot involving 150 farmers in 2 villages to demonstrate proof of concept. 

- Refine tools and recruit 50 additional farmers annually for ongoing testing and feedback in 5 new villages each year, totaling 300 farmers in 7 villages engaged directly.

- Build partnerships with 3-5 local NGOs/government agencies to begin integrating FarmTrace and multiplying our reach to indirectly impact 1500 more farmers through their extension networks. 

In years 2-3, we will expand across Marangu district using a hub-and-spoke model to:

- Enroll all 20,000 farmers in the district by directly involving 'model farms' who train neighboring farmers, supported by our NGO partners, reaching 10,000 farmers annually.  

- Scale mobile platform and analytics to generate district-wide baseline and to impact 50,000 farmers through behavior change recommendations tailored to resistance profiles.

- Capture lessons to adapt FarmTrace for other priority districts and countries, with goal of empowering 300,000 smallholder livestock farmers across Tanzania to curb AMR through an integrated community surveillance model.

Scaling partnerships, localized models and open access will maximize our transformative potential.

We measure our success against the following key indicators:

1. Farmer Participation - Rates of enrollment, sample submission and use of recommendations. Pilot targets were exceeded with 80% of farmers providing monthly samples over 6 months. 

2. AMR Detection - Frequency and range of genes identified through assays. Pilot showed 80% reduction in ESBL detection after targeted farmers changed practices.

3. Behavior Change - Adoption of practices like rotational grazing measured through surveys. 95% of pilot farmers reported ongoing changes with 30% increasing incomes as a result.

4. stakeholder feedback - Open-ended questions and focus groups. NGO partners highlighted improved understanding of resistance drivers and empowerment of farmers as citizen scientists. 

Beyond the pilot, we are conducting annual surveying of all enrolled farmers and collecting routine sample/metadata from a representative 20% to formally evaluate impact on attitudes, practices and environmental resistances across our project villages and districts. This will provide the evidence base to successfully scale FarmTrace solutions.

Some key barriers FarmTrace may face in scaling over the next 1-3 years include:

Financial - Initial funding limits full district expansion. We are pursuing follow-on grants and impact investment to cover costs of scaled deployment, staffing and maintenance. 

Infrastructure - Reliable electricity and internet coverage are needed. We are partnering with MNOs to leverage existing cellular networks and enable offline data capture/batch uploading. 

Adoption - Changing entrenched behaviors takes time. We will train lead farmers in each village as demonstration sites and influence peer networks through local partner extension workers.

Policy - Existing top-down regulations may impede ground-up approaches. We will engage directly with ministers to showcase FarmTrace value-add as a community-driven solution aligned with national One Health goals. 

To overcome these, FarmTrace will leverage existing relationships with farmer cooperatives, NGOs and government extension services built during our pilot phase to gain buy-in for scaled participation, resources and an enabling policy environment. Continued community engagement, empirically demonstrating impacts on health and wealth, and flexible, localized implementation models will further facilitate overcoming barriers to transformational impact.

We are applying to The Trinity Challenge because it directly aligns with our goals and is ideally structured to help us overcome key barriers to scaling our FarmTrace initiative:

Access to capital: As a young social enterprise, lack of funding is a major constraint. The Trinity Challenge's £1M award is specifically tailored to supporting solutions like ours that demonstrate promise but lack the resources for expansion. 

Evidence generation: Rigorous impact evaluation is vital but prohibitively expensive without outside support. The Challenge's focus on measurable outcomes will support our research partnerships to build the empirical case studies needed for sustained buy-in.

Partnership building: Extending our reach demands coordinated, multi-sector collaboration. The Challenge accelerates this process by facilitating introductions to implementing organizations operating at our target scale. 

Policy influence: Demonstrating impact on AMR resistance trends requires systems-level interventions. The Challenge creates a platform to socialize our learnings with decision-makers and shape supportive policy environments.

By directly tackling limitations in funding, data, networks and policy influence through capacity-building awards and networking opportunities, The Trinity Challenge offers an unmatched opportunity to systematically address barriers currently inhibiting FarmTrace from achieving its full potential for communities.

Collaboration with the following organizations would greatly help FarmTrace initiate, accelerate and scale our AMR surveillance and intervention efforts in Tanzania:

Wellcome - as a leading global health charity, their technical expertise in global AMR surveillance systems, policy engagement, and proven ability to fund at scale would help expand national coverage and influence. 

Patrick J McGovern Foundation - their focus on accelerating AI and data solutions could strengthen FarmTrace's mHealth and analytics capabilities critical to gleaning insights from big data to improve interventions. 

Ineos Oxford Institute - their world-class AMR research expertise, particularly in animal and environmental surveillance experience in Africa, would support improving the scientific rigour and insights from FarmTrace's pilots. 

Working closely with these Challenge collaborator organizations would leverage their complementary technical strengths, networks, and resources to more efficiently develop, test and disseminate the FarmTrace approach. This vital support at a pivotal stage will maximize our potential to demonstrate impact and become a sustainably embedded program transforming AMR outcomes for Tanzania and beyond.