THE FEEDCALCULATOR APP

About the Single Spark

The Feed Calculator is a product developed by social entrepreneurs Peter Meijer and Sam van Veluw from Single Spark The Netherlands, a social business to support entrepreneurship in developing countries. For more information see; www.singlespark.nl 
They work together with a great team of feed experts, nutritionists and animal scientist from The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Nigeria, Zambia, Tanzania and Uganda. The FeedCalculator partners with Agri Pro Focus, WUR University of Wageningen, University of Tilburg, PUM Senior Experts, CVB Database, University of Ibadan, Heifer International, Oxfam Nigeria, IITA Tanzania, IITA Nigeria, BRAC poultry, World Food Program WFP,  WFP Innovation accelerator Munich.

 

About the Feed Calculator app

Situation:
Millions of farmers in developing countries don't have access to high quality affordable feed for their livestock. The feed mixes they have access to, or make is often of inconsistent quality. This results in low outputs for their livestock. Think fewer eggs per bird, and less milk per cow.
 
When farmers mix their own livestock feeds, they are faced with the following issues: which ingredients should be mixed together, and how much? Is this mix suitable for my animal species? And what to do when an ingredient from the recipe is no longer available?
 
Innovation:
Together with a team of feed experts Single Spark developed the Feed Calculator app. This app integrates years of scientific knowledge and accessibility within an easy to use smart phone app.
It allows small-scale livestock farmers to optimize their own feed mixes.
 
Optimizing a feed mix means that the algorithm calculates a high-quality recipe for the lowest possible cost. This app creates personal recipes based on available ingredients, current prices, and the selected animal species such as broiler, layer, dairy, beef, goat, sheep, duck, fish, etc.
 
Potential:
This is just a start but the potential to scale the Feed Calculator is huge. Millions of farmers have the potential to increase both their livestock productivity, and their income. Millions of tons of feed are wasted because farmers have neither the capacity nor the access to the knowledge and tools that are available in developed countries. The Feed Calculator is about to change this, and their lives!