The Agricultural Sector is an important pillar of the Suriname national economy, a principal driver of economic growth and employing thousands of Suriname men, women and youth. Livestock numbers have undergone substantial changes. The most up-to-date data originate from the census in 2015 and indicate livestock numbers of 35,536 cattle on 4856 premises, 562 buffaloes on 25 premises, 19,962 small ruminants on 1,778 premises, 248 horse on 72 premises, 921,492 poultry animals on 2,731 premises, and 21,361 pigs on 208 premises.

The overall project objective was to design and implement an AIT System with the objective of animal and establishment identification and movement traceability, enabling the provision of an animal inventoy, the integration of animal health data and disease monitoring, performance recording and animal identification.

The project deliverables were assigned to three stages out of which the first two have been completed:

Stage 1 elaborated a Strategy and Action Plan.

Stage 2 delivered the specification of the AIR&T system requirements and the parameterization of software. In co-operation with the beneficiary, the consultant elaborated the requirements of the animal traceability system for cattle on the basis of well established procedures. The requirements were documented in a so called technical programming concept (TPC) which includes the complete information for the parameterization process. With the approval of the TPC by the beneficiary, the parameterization process was started and subsequently, the software was tested. After installation of the AIR&T software infrastructure components at the premises of the Ministry and the conduction of the software training, the software is approved by and delivered to the beneficiary. This approach allows that staff of the beneficiary is actively involved in the usage and management of the ATS platform from project month 6 onwards. This gives the opportunity for a continuous knowledge transfer for a period of 12 months.

Stage 3 starts when the production software is put into operation and the preparation of the field implementation including the procurement of all necessary equipment to roll-out the AIR&T system in the pilot region is completed. The final stage includes a 6 months maintenance period by the consultant.