Frequently Asked Questions

A blockchain animal passport is a tamper-proof digital record of an animal's full history — origin, ownership transfers, vaccination and health events, production records, and compliance status — anchored on the Polygon EVM public blockchain and accessible via a QR code. Buyers, veterinarians, regulators, and export authorities can scan the QR code to verify the animal's history without needing access to your Farm MGT system.

Hyperledger Fabric is a permissioned blockchain — a private, internal ledger accessible only to authorised parties (your farm, your vet, your lender). It records all farm operations with an immutable audit trail. Polygon EVM is a public blockchain — animal passports are minted as NFTs here and are publicly verifiable by anyone with the QR code. The two layers are bridged asynchronously via RabbitMQ so farm operations are never delayed by blockchain confirmation times.

Records on the Polygon EVM public blockchain are permanent and cannot be deleted once confirmed. This is by design — the value of a blockchain passport is precisely that it cannot be altered retrospectively. Internal Hyperledger Fabric records are permissioned and can be managed within your network, but their append-only nature means historical entries cannot be modified, only superseded by new entries.

Each animal enrolled in the blockchain provenance module has a QR code that can be printed on a physical tag or displayed on the Farm MGT dashboard. Scanning the QR code with any smartphone opens a public verification page showing the animal's passport — breed, origin, ownership history, vaccination records, and compliance status — without requiring login or access to your system.

Your operational data is private. Only data you explicitly choose to include in the public animal passport (vaccination status, ownership history, compliance certifications) is published to the Polygon public chain. All other farm records — financials, feed records, internal health notes, GPS data — remain private on the permissioned Hyperledger Fabric network or in your Farm MGT database.

Farm MGT is built with enterprise security practices:

• All data in transit encrypted with TLS 1.2+
• Data at rest encrypted with AES-256
• Role-based access control — farm managers, field workers, and administrators have separate permissions
• Django CSRF protection, XSS filtering, and SQL injection prevention via the ORM
• Docker network isolation between application components
• No credentials hardcoded — all secrets via environment variables

The blockchain wallet used to sign and mint animal passport NFTs on Polygon EVM belongs to your farm. Private keys are stored in a key management service and never handled by Vetra staff. We assist with wallet setup during onboarding and provide key backup procedures, but the cryptographic ownership of your animal passports remains with you.

Farm MGT is priced based on the size of your farming operation and the modules you require. We offer flexible arrangements for smallholder commercial farms, large-scale operations, and farming group enterprises. Contact us for a quote — we'll assess your needs during the demo and propose a pricing structure that fits your operation.

Yes. We offer a 30-day pilot for qualifying commercial farms — you get full access to all Farm MGT modules, an Android device for field use, and onboarding support from our team. The pilot is designed to demonstrate measurable value before any commercial commitment. Book a demo to get started.

Our onboarding process includes: system configuration for your farm structure, data migration from existing spreadsheets or systems, staff training for farm managers and field workers, Android app setup and offline configuration, blockchain wallet setup (for farms using the provenance module), and a 30-day hypercare period with direct access to our engineering team.

A standard Farm MGT deployment takes 2–4 weeks from signed agreement to go-live. This includes system configuration, data migration, staff training, and blockchain setup. Larger operations with complex enterprise structures or multi-farm configurations may take 6–8 weeks. We'll give you a project timeline during the scoping call.

Yes. Training is included in all onboarding packages. We train farm managers on the web dashboard (reporting, animal management, financial entry), field staff on the Android app (offline recording, sync procedures), and administrators on the Django admin panel (user management, system configuration). We also provide written quick-reference guides.

Yes. Farm MGT is modular by design. You can start with livestock management and add crop tracking, blockchain provenance, or the financial module later — without re-implementation. Module activations are handled via configuration changes and typically take less than a week.

Farm MGT is Vetra's flagship enterprise platform for commercial farms. It combines livestock lifecycle management, crop and field operations, dual-layer blockchain provenance, farm financials, management reporting, an offline Android field app, and mobile money integration — all in a single system built for East African farms.

Farm MGT covers the full livestock lifecycle:

• Animal registry with pedigree and tag history
• Health records, veterinary visits, and vaccination schedules
• Feed and nutrition planning per animal group
• Breeding records, pregnancy tracking, and calving outcomes
• Daily milk production logs and lactation curves
• Weight records, growth curves, and average daily gain analytics

Yes — Farm MGT is a unified platform for both. The crop and field modules include field and paddock mapping, full crop cycle records (land prep through harvest), input and chemical inventory, yield analytics, forecasting at current market prices, and grazing rotation scheduling. Livestock and crop data share a single financial ledger.

The Farm MGT Android app is designed for field use with full offline capability. Farm workers can record animal observations, weights, treatments, input applications, and crop observations from anywhere on the farm — including areas with no internet. Data syncs automatically to the central system when the device comes back into range.

Farm MGT generates: herd performance summaries, milk production and lactation reports, crop yield vs input cost analysis, gross margin statements by enterprise, income and expenditure reports, compliance status reports, and bank-ready financial statements. Reports are auto-generated and exportable as PDF.

Yes. Farm MGT sends automated reminders for: vaccinations due, animals ready for market weight, pre-harvest intervals for chemical applications, crop spray windows, loan repayment dates, and lease renewals. Alerts are delivered via in-app notification and SMS through Africa's Talking.

Yes. A single Farm MGT instance can manage multiple farm enterprises (dairy, beef, crops, horticulture) with separate financial tracking per enterprise. Multi-farm group configurations for commercial farming operations are available under our Enterprise plan — contact us to discuss your setup.

All Farm MGT deployments include: email and phone support during East African business hours (Mon–Fri, 8am–6pm EAT), a 30-day hypercare period with elevated response SLAs immediately after go-live, software updates and security patches, and access to our documentation portal. Enterprise clients receive a dedicated account manager.

Farm MGT updates are released as versioned Docker images. For cloud-hosted clients, updates are applied automatically during a maintenance window (typically Sunday nights). For self-hosted clients, we provide update instructions and Docker Compose configurations. Database migrations run automatically during the update process.

The Android field app continues to function fully offline — all recording capabilities remain available. The web dashboard requires internet. If your server loses internet, local farm operations continue unaffected; the web dashboard becomes unavailable but data integrity is maintained and syncs resume when connectivity is restored.

Yes. We offer customisation for farms with unique requirements — additional data fields, custom report formats, integration with specific third-party systems, or white-labelled deployments for farming groups and co-operatives. Customisation is scoped and priced separately from the base platform. Contact us to discuss.

Yes — data migration is included in our standard onboarding. We can import historical livestock records, crop history, and financial data from Excel/CSV files. For migrations from other farm management software, we assess the source data format and provide a migration plan as part of the onboarding scoping process.

For urgent issues, contact our support line directly at hello@vetrasystems.com or via the support portal included with your Farm MGT subscription. For critical production issues (system down, data loss risk), we target a 2-hour response during business hours and 4-hour response outside business hours for Enterprise clients.

Farm MGT uses a modern, enterprise-grade stack:

• Backend: Django 5 (Python) and Spring Boot (Java)
• Blockchain: Hyperledger Fabric (internal) and Polygon EVM (public passports)
• Messaging: RabbitMQ for async event brokering between systems
• Database: MySQL / MariaDB
• Mobile: Android with offline-first architecture
• Infrastructure: Docker Compose, deployable on AWS or on-premise

The Android field app is fully offline-capable. Staff can record all farm activities without an internet connection. Data queues locally on the device and syncs bidirectionally once connectivity is restored. The web dashboard requires an internet connection but is optimised for low-bandwidth environments.

Farm MGT exposes a REST API (the Agri Data API) that allows third-party systems to query farm records, receive webhook notifications for key events, and verify blockchain passport data. We have integrated with loan management systems, market price platforms, and government registries. Contact us to discuss your specific integration requirements.

Farm MGT integrates with MTN Mobile Money and Airtel Money for payment recording and reconciliation. Income from milk sales, livestock sales, and crop sales can be matched against mobile money receipts. Outgoing payments for inputs, labour, and veterinary services are also recordable against mobile money transactions.

Yes. Farm MGT ships as a Docker Compose stack and can be deployed on your own servers, a local data centre, or AWS. We provide deployment documentation and can assist with initial setup and configuration. For clients who prefer managed hosting, we offer a cloud-hosted option on AWS infrastructure in the Africa region.

Farm MGT uses MySQL / MariaDB as its primary database. MariaDB is recommended for production deployments. The system is containerised via Docker and the database is intentionally run on the host machine (not inside a container) to simplify backup and recovery procedures.

Yes — the Agri Data API is a separate product that exposes Farm MGT data via a clean REST interface with JWT authentication, rate limiting, and webhook subscriptions. It enables lenders, co-operatives, market platforms, and government registries to query verified farm records without direct database access.

The Android app uses an offline-first architecture with a local SQLite database. When internet is available, the app performs a bidirectional sync with the Farm MGT server — pushing locally recorded data and pulling updates (new animal records, price changes, reminder updates) from the server. Conflict resolution favours the most recent timestamp.