Yuj : a bot-based multimodal tool for livestock farmers

‘Yuj’  is a geotagged and bot-based multimodal tool for antimicrobial growth promoter surveillance and intervention through regulation of antibiotic use via real-time recommendations and networking in livestock farming.

Dr Sanjeev Singh, Medical Director, Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, Faridabad, Haryana

  India is the largest consumer of antibiotics in terms of absolute volume. Evidence shows that there is rampant use of antibiotics in the food animal production sector as well, i.e, those that are raised and bred to produce food for human consumption such as eggs, meat and milk. India ranks among the top 5 countries with the largest shares of global antimicrobial consumption in food animal production Antibiotics are used in food animals for treatment, metaphylaxis, and growth promoters to boost weight for the animals. There are few regulations in place to restrict antibiotic use. Resistant bacteria can spread to humans from raw or inadequately cooked food when the raw materials are contaminated or cross-contaminated with other food and the environment during preparation. The proposed study aims to promote the use of antibiotic-free growth promoters thereby reducing the unnecessary use of antibiotics in animals. 

   The solution mainly targets the indigenous farming communities involved in animal husbandry and livestock raising. In addition to optimizing the use of antibiotics, growth promoters and veterinary prescriptions, our solutions would also improve farming practices leading to improved animal hygiene and lesser disease outbreaks.

                     The solution would also bring about the creation of a regional community network through the mobile application and sensitization sessions, which would promote focused interaction on training and veterinary antibiotic use on disease outbreaks among local veterinarians and policy makers. This would aid in adopting prophylactic measures for disease prevention in response to climate and weather changes and transfer knowledge of technologies to improve utilization of limited land.

Data on antimicrobial consumption patterns indicate that over 80% of antimicrobial use had been related to animal health and veterinary practices. The use of antibiotics has been largely unexplored and unregulated in animal health, especially in rural areas of India. 

Reduce indiscriminate antimicrobial use: The targeted interventional strategy at ground level for livestock farmers that focus on regulated consumption on antimicrobials and user initiated data collation would bring down unwarranted use of antimicrobials in the area. 

Meat with reduced antibiotic content for public: Adhering to rational antimicrobial use principles and interventional strategies would help in producing healthier meat with lower content of antimicrobials.

Training materials: The availability of awareness tools and educational resources developed through the project would help in sensitizing the masses to the issue and sustain the programme. 

Public policy: Empowered livestock farmers in the community providing feedback to policy makers. The formulated guidelines and good practices that have been found to be effective and developed on the go in smaller backyard farms can be emulated by larger farms all through the state. The reduction in unwarranted use of antimicrobial use would also reduce costs,  bring down national consumption and GDP. This paves way for the concept of ‘antibiotic free meat’ in the state.

Impact: Reduced antimicrobial drug residues in food, meat and poultry products. An overall AMR risk reduction from one health perspective.

Animal health: Rationale antimicrobial use and promoting good farm management practices would translate to increase in disease management, living conditions abd welfare of animals. Reduced emergence and transmission of resistant strains to humans and improved immune health leading to better resilience to infections. 

Human health: The solution will support small scale farmers and  households in Faridabad, Haryana to have an understanding of  the benefits of antibiotic free meat use among public. The App created as part of the study will educate the public and help them identify stores and farms that provide antibiotic free meat. Initiating the reduction of indiscriminate antimicrobial consumption in veterinary use through focused strategies would decrease the transmission of AMR strains from animals to live stock farmers.

Environment : Reduction in the release of antimicrobial waste into water and subsequent environmental pollution.

                   The geotagged and bot based multimodal tool would be developed and implemented in one village in Haryana in the first year. Post the launch of this tool, multiple rounds of educational campaigns would be provided to the farmers, veterinarians and others involved in the management of livestock and food animals. These would include sessions on promoting general awareness to the public on the harmful impacts of using antibiotics unnecessarily in these animals and the subsequent impact to humans and how the tool is to be used to  identify stores and farms that provide antibiotic free meat. Posters would be displayed at public gathering areas on the benefits of using antibiotic-free meat and the required information on how the app can be accessed. 

            In the following years, the use of this tool would be expanded to cover other villages in Haryana in a step wise manner. Following that the findings from the study from different villages would be shared with professional bodies on animal health and one health to develop context specific interventions to reinforce the ban on the use of colistin in food animals  such as mandating manufacturers to clearly state in the label that the meat is antibiotic free. 

In the bot based tool, indicators such as number of users who downloaded the app, average duration spent on the app etc would be recorded which can be used to access the reach of the app among the public. 

6 months post implementation of the app, the study team will conduct semi structured interviews of selected farmers and other members who are involved in the management of food animals to further access the utility of the app. 

LLM based feedback through RLHF (Reinforcement learning through human feedback) would be deployed to ensure the interventional efficiency with the user feedback. 

The team would also perform audits of the use of antibiotics in the farms of the selected village post the implementation of the tool. 

These results would be shared with the Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying as well as Centre for One Health ,National Centre for Disease Control, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. This will also support scaling the interventions to other parts of India as well. 

In addition to that we will also support the creation of a local network of farmers and devise schemes to uplift those following the right practices and promoting antibiotic free meat

The main barrier that we have identified is the lack of education and knowledge about the harmful impacts of using meat which has antibiotics used as growth promoters. As a result, we anticipate that there would be an initial hesitancy to use the tool generated as part of this study. Continuous education sessions would be conducted along with displaying posters and flyers on this topic to overcome this potential challenge. This would happen in the first year. 

The other challenge anticipated is the unregulated over the counter dispensing of antibiotics. This challenge would require involvement from the government as well that includes stricter implementation of regulations to restrict dispensing of antibiotics only with a valid prescription from a veterinarian. In addition imposing an additional user fee on the veterinary antibiotics have been recommended to reduce the dispensing of antibiotics.  

     Trinity challenge is uniquely poised to support solutions to combat AMR from a one health based perspective. Our goals align with the objectives of the challenge in terms of innovative data based application and surveillance in animal husbandry, especially from the community level with a multidisciplinary approach. The call for the challenge is open at the time where we are looking for scaling up our interventions that worked out in Kerala to local villages of Haryana, coupled with innovative LLM models, surveillance and sensitization. Overall, we believe that the Trinity Challenge shares our vision of the need for developing meaningful and tangible solutions to address AMR that benefits the public good and goes beyond mere regional impact. 

Public Health Foundation of India

Indian Council of Medical Research

Society of Applied Sciences