SenzAgro Promoting Digital Agriculture Technologies among rural farmers in Ecuador

INTRODUCTION

When someone who has been reliant on conventional agricultural techniques interacts with agrotech for the first time, it can be both an exciting and terrifying industry. However, everyone is aware that agrotech is the first step in ensuring better and easier farming techniques in order to move toward a wasteless society and fulfill rising food demands. The rural farmers and supply networks in Ecuador, who were in charge of various crops including plantains, cassava, parsnips, and sweet potatoes, also wanted to contribute to this aim, but they were aware that change would not be well received there.

SOLUTION

To help its farmers adopt agrotech, the customer sought a user-friendly, informative, and effective solution. They turned to us and our mobile platform as a result, since SenzAgro's precision agricultural system has the ability to transform the current system into a sensor-based system. Through the application, the smart farming system can track and log meteorological data including humidity, temperature, soil moisture, soil temperature, EC, and more. As a result, the farmers would have free reign to handle their controls through the program while also having remote access to real-time data on the parameters. One of the requirements the client desired involved the use of sensory data to help trigger automated responses. For instance, the system would automatically activate the required controls (such the fans or sprinklers) if the greenhouse reached temperatures of roughly 35 to 36 degrees Celsius and would alert the user in real-time via the application or SMS.

With the help of modern technology for enhancing agricultural productivity using multiple sensors, it is possible to manage the crops more effectively than with manual methods, ensuring that the crops are given an adequate amount of each parameter. While SMS notifications would be utilized to inform, monitor, and manage farm operations and employees via the farm application, Crop Specific Intelligence might enable farmers to monitor and manage the crops with more certainty as the data supplied assures the best output.

Using SenzAgro's smart farming technologies and the assistance of highly qualified agronomists , guidance on how to prevent disease or insect assaults may also be provided. The user only needs to provide the agronomist with a picture of the disease or pest and a brief description, and both parties will then provide guidance on how to safely manage it.

The client was confident that having SenzAgro handle their introduction would be a tremendous success once the farmers discovered how much stress the application saved from their everyday routine. The interface of the application uses a variety of graphics and colors to draw in users and make it easier for them to recognize or remember aspects without being constrained by a language barrier.

ACTION TAKEN

Five of the many farms they owned were chosen for the study's pilot study. Individual sensing units were delivered to each farm to start the application's demonstration. Farmers could attend special training sessions to get their questions answered and learn how to use the system.

The microclimate factors on the plantation, including temperature, humidity, soil moisture, and EC, were tracked in real-time to make sure the peppers received the ideal amounts of each and to maintain the levels without the need for human intervention. Additionally, the sensor data was used to comprehend how different climatic parameter applications might increase crop quantity and quality while consuming fewer resources. The application allowed the client to obtain all the data in an automatically created report, saving time spent recording and effectively showing data for analysis.

In addition to the use of fungicides, images of fungal attacks and other pests and illnesses are provided via the farm application to their own agronomists, who then identify and thoroughly research the problem before providing recommendations on how to control it. SenzAgro's "Agricore Platform" makes it easy to keep track of all problems that arise throughout the crop cycle, enabling the client to take preventative action in the following crop cycle.

Instead of only hearing explanations, the farmers would engage in a hands-on approach where they would get to use the system and become familiar with it; this helped the farmers clear up more ambiguities and ease themselves into the agrotech system.

RESULTS

SenzAgro's technology gave the farmers a better perception of agrotech, which was in line with the client's expectations. The five pilot farms produced more yields of higher quality as a result of the training program's improvement of the crops' growing environment. The farmers were eager to use the system daily after realizing how quickly they could gain numerous benefits that would have taken years to attain using conventional methods with less labor and waste. The client was anxious to expand the program to include additional farmers because the training's outcomes considerably exceeded expectations. If everything goes well, they will continue to use SenzAgro's smart farming technology after the training period.