The Agriculture Boys: Bennett Miller, Gabriel Anhalzer, Heinz Ulrich Boehmer Fiehn, Dhruva Koley, Ruben Vargas
Project Origin: Alan Mickelson
Agricultural cooperative farms in Uganda and in many parts of the developing world harvest many tonnes of produce per year. However, they face challenges getting consistent water supply, particularly in the dry season, which affects their harvest due to crop losses from poor water management. Lack of information by the cooperatives about seed varieties also affects the quality of their crop harvest.
The Smart Agriculture Control System demonstrates cost effective smart farming in the developing world by utilizing IoT technology to address challenges facing agricultural cooperatives, specifically water management and crop quality. With a more consistent water supply, better seed and fertilizer, cooperatives have the potential to significantly increase their production.
Africa Development Promise is a US-based NGO with a local branch in Uganda. ADP supports women’s economic empowerment with one of the approaches being support to local agricultural cooperatives. Through them, the primary beneficiaries of the Smart Agriculture Control System are two local women’s cooperatives (comprising of 26 members each) located in Gombe and Nangabo sub-counties in Wakiso district, Uganda; as well as indirect beneficiaries (family members and community members in the sub-counties). The beneficiary community will also include consumers of the agricultural produce of the cooperatives.
The Smart Agriculture Control System consists of a full agricultural irrigation and monitoring system. This system is able to provide irrigation to all crops by using solar pumps to keep water holding tanks full. The amount of water that each of these crops receive is controlled by a central unit based on inputs from sensors positioned throughout the fields. Smaller units containing said sensors are laid out strategically and have the ability to communicate with the central terminal via wireless RF communications. With this, the coops have better control of water output and make informed decisions to maximize agricultural produce based on local sensor data.