AgroRithm: Smart Animal & Earth Sustainability Guardian

Smart guardian for animals and the earth lands: tracking, wellbeing, and transparency made simple. Prevention of overgrazing.

Comment 2

Inspiration

We were inspired by the rising challenges faced by farmers, herders, and animal owners in rural Africa ie rural parts of Nigeria, Ghana, Niger, Mali, Kenya, Ethiopia, South-Africa were livestock are often lost due to grazing conflicts, unsafe environments, or poor tracking. Also global Livestock and conservation issues in rural India, Brazil, Australia etc. In Africa especially, wild animals and the environment around them are under threat, traceability can help. We wanted to create a solution that protects animals, assists owners, and improves wellbeing while being accessible, offline ready, multilingual, and low-cost.

What it does

AgroRithm is an AI + Geofencing + IoT/GSM/GPS tracker-powered platform that helps farmers and herders manage livestock and prevent conflicts, deaths and loss of livestock and crops. It tracks cattle movements in real time using IoT sensors, GPS, and offline-first mobile and web(PWA) apps, while sending early warnings and alerts when animals approach farms or restricted zones. An AI powered camera can prevent cow intrusion in nongrazing areas. The system uses AI models and maps to give actionable insights. It also integrates blockchain (Hedera) for transparent logging of events, token-based rewards for sustainability actions, and proof of animal wellbeing.

How we built it

We started by identifying key challenges faced by farmers and herders in Africa, especially livestock loss, conflict, and grazing management. Using this as a base, we developed AgroRithm as a modular platform:

IoT Layer → GPS trackers for livestock movement data, designed to work even in low-connectivity rural areas.

Mobile & Web Apps (PWA + Telegram bot) → Offline-first apps for farmers, herders, and admins to receive alerts, manage data, and interact with AI.

AI Models (TinyLLaMA ) → Educate farmers and herders via offline chatbot.

Blockchain (Hedera) → Immutable Logs of livestock events, movements, herders and landed agro properties(Grazing and nongrazing) for trust and dispute resolutions ie location, movement, rewards sustainability actions with tokens, and ensures transparent reporting. Investment in livestock can b e easily done via the Hedera chain.

Firebase backend → For real-time data sync, storage of livestock events, herders, farmers, farmlands(grazing and non-grazing lands) and automated trigger via clouds for Hedera blockchain loggings for immutability. Gertting the best of both WEB2.0 and WEB3.0.

We combined open-source tools (YOLOv5, Ollama, ) with custom-built features to deliver a system that works both online and offline, making it scalable and practical in rural settings.

Challenges we ran into

Building AgroRithm came with several challenges:

Connectivity issues → Designing a system that works offline-first in rural areas without stable internet required creative use of PWA technology, SMS/USSD fallback, firebase persistence and storage of geolocation by IoT neo6m on the esp32 if no netowork and sends when there is network. GSM/GPS trackers are used for more stable networks.

Data accuracy → GPS tracking on low-cost devices was sometimes unreliable, so we had to combine cell tower fallback to make livestock movement data more usable.

Blockchain integration → Making Hedera logging lightweight, cost-effective, and automated data trigger from firebase.

AI -> Running Tinyllama on a laptop with not too high RAM and then been able to access it on phone via LAN offline

Challenges in the design of the android app as a result of dependency issues.

Hardware limitations → Testing IoT trackers at times it wont connect due to building interferences or trees, has to have direct line of sight with space satellite, and also running AI locally on modest laptops meant optimizing models for low-power devices.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Being able to create a solution that solves a critical issue that has led to loss of animals, cattle and human lives as well as destruction of crops and arable farmlands in Africa and beyond.

Successfully built an offline-first IoT + AI livestock tracking system that works even in rural areas with limited internet.

Deployed Hedera blockchain logging for immutable livestock events and token-based incentives, making sustainability, trust, safety and transparency a core feature.

What we learned

The importance of combining multiple technologies (AI, IoT, blockchain, geospatial data) to solve complex, real-world problems.

How cross-domain knowledge (agriculture, conservation, data science, community engagement) enriches tech solutions for animals and humans

What's next for AgroRithm: Smart Animal & Earth Sustainability Guardian

Partnerships with NGOs, improvement of AI as relates agentic alerts, expand the blockchain use to enable provision of loans and investments for herders and farmers using DEFI, expand in Nigeria and then Africa and the world at large.

Built With

Share this project:

Updates