Development of a mobile application for Pacific white shrimp (Penaeus vannamei) farming and evaluation of its efficiency in technology communication and feedback

Abstract

Shrimp farming is a technology-driven and risk-intensive food production system. Shrimp farms are remotely located and farmers need customized farm advisories, which the conventional extension systems are not able to provide. To provide technology advisories to the stakeholders, an android mobile application, CIBA ShrimpApp, was developed in 2018, based on the information and format requirements of the shrimp farmers using Java language as front end and the data bases were created as back end through Structured Query Language (MySQL). The app contains eight modules, viz. better management practices of shrimp farming, quantification of inputs, on-farm disease diagnosis, on-farm risk assessment, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) in shrimp farming, regulations, advisories and updates and posting queries which were integrated as a mobile application. The app has more than 27,500 cumulative downloads and has a rating of 4.5 out of 5.0. The application was found to have improved the knowledge level of end users to the tune of 20–37%. The Google firebase application data showed that 98.4% of users of CIBA ShrimpApp were free from errors and crashes. An evaluation study conducted among sample regular users indicated that the app aided in farm decision-making and its design functionality and extension service function were perceived to be efficient. Considering the all-pervading mobile phone connectivity and affordability, smart phone-based mobile applications and data analytics can play a significant role in shrimp farm advisory services and its sustainability.