Connecting Human, Animal, and Farm: A Case for Investing in Animal ID for DPI

In the wake of the 2025 Global DPI Summit, where focus shifted from theory to implementation, we are grappling with questions of what will expand the adoption and scale of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI). Researchers at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP) conceptualize DPI as “shared digital systems that support service delivery, foster innovation, and enable social and economic development.” Successful DPI implementation will be characterized by speed of deployment, but more importantly, by user adoption and connected services to enable social and economic development. This horizon requires deepening integration of DPI into key sectors, accurately aligning with core user needs and services. 

In particular, DPI can enable agriculture investments to achieve scale, breaking down siloes and reducing fragmentation that often prevents digital opportunities from having a widespread impact.  The transformative potential of DPI implementation is widely recognized: how a government ID can unlock access to critical services, particularly for farmers who register land, livestock, and crops to open the door to financial and other services that can transform farm productivity. In the case of livestock, using registered cattle as collateral can expand market access and, in emergencies, speed up disease tracing to quickly identify and contain public health threats.

This policy brief explores animal identification (Animal ID) – a largely under-explored and under-integrated component of DPI for agriculture frameworks. It outlines what effective DPI for animals can look like and highlights the benefits of investing in it.