Digital Preservation of Ethnoveterinary Knowledge for Sustainable Livestock Development in Nigeria

Smallholder farmers in rural Nigeria produce over 70% of the country's goats and sheep, yet they have virtually no access to affordable formal veterinary care. In the absence of conventional services, indigenous ethnoveterinary knowledge (plant-based and non-botanical remedies) passed down orally across generations, serves as the primary animal healthcare system for most rural livestock producers. This knowledge is sophisticated, practical, and proven. It is also vanishing. This policy brief presents evidence from an exploratory participatory study conducted across six villages in Niger State, Nigeria, spanning three agro-ecological zones. The study engaged 60 respondents (48 smallholder livestock farmers and 12 traditional healers and local veterinarians) and documented 22 plant-based ethnoveterinary remedies across eight disease categories, as well as 10 non-botanical treatments in active use in the study communities. Key findings include: 65% of farmers rely on ethnoveterinary practices as their primary source of livestock healthcare; 78% of this knowledge exists exclusively through oral transmission with no written or digital record; and 56% of farmers expressed strong interest in a culturally relevant digital knowledge platform. Helminthosis (81%), tick and mange (77%), and diarrhoea (65%) were the most prevalent livestock diseases reported, all managed primarily through indigenous remedies. Logistic regression analysis found digital interest broadly distributed across demographic groups, with no single socio-economic predictor reaching statistical significance, a finding that supports community-wide platform adoption strategies. The brief presents evidence on the ANNIMATEK platform, a bilingual (English, Hausa) prototype web-based application co-created with Niger State communities by GLEAZAR Consult, as a model for scalable, community-led digital preservation of indigenous livestock healthcare knowledge. Three priority policy recommendations are advanced: institutionalizing ethnoveterinary knowledge documentation through government-funded, community-owned programs; investing in rural digital infrastructure, particularly internet connectivity and multilingual content, as a precondition for digital preservation at scale; and integrating validated ethnoveterinary practices into Nigeria's national livestock extension system. Recommendations are aligned with Nigeria's National Digital Economy Policy (2020–2030), the African Union's STISA-2034, FAO One Health frameworks, and SDGs 2, 9, and 15. This policy brief was produced under the AFRIAK (African Indigenous and Knowledge Systems) Fellowship, hosted by the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) and funded by the Mastercard Foundation.