What do mobile phones have to do with irrigation?

One obstacle that prevents farmers from implementing irrigation schemes in the most efficient way on their farm is their lack of knowledge. Training every farmer on how best to manage water seems unrealistic due to the costs and time required. However, I came across an article that talks about making use of what most African farmers already have (mobile phones) and using texting as a means of communicating valuable information. The article talks about a pilot project, which was carried out in Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia, where information and weather advice was provided to small-scale farmers over SMS.  

Farmers using phones on a farm in Uganda (Source)

The whole trial was generally positive, and it sounds like this could be a method that may well be used in the future to help farmers with the management of irrigation. I did some further research on this and came across this paper, written by A. Singels and M.T. Smith describing a pilot SMS model, like the one in the article, being used as a trial in South Africa.  Unlike my previous posts, this post will look at the situation of farms post-irrigation.  The paper states that the irrigation techniques used in South African sugar cane farms have not been so positive due to over-irrigation, and that irrigation schemes have had very low water efficiencies and reduced profitabilities. This is due to:

·      The difficulties in using technology and applying information gathered using technology in practice on the farm.

·      Farmers having the perception that accurate irrigation scheduling has little benefit to crop yield, especially small-scale farmers who do not have access to monitoring equipment or the internet to help them schedule their irrigation.

So although irrigation has been implemented in this instance, it is not being used in the best way. There needs to be a means of allowing farmers to access and understand crop growth models and weather predictions so that they can use their irrigation instruments in the most optimal way.

Irrigation can be scheduled to meet certain targets, such as to maximise profits or to maximise water use efficiency and minimise water wastage. Models have been developed to calculate irrigation schedules, which provide watering dates and subsequent watering quantities to meet these targets, but farmers have often found these models too complex and difficult to understand. So models need to be simplified with straightforward advice so that farmers can receive user specific guidance that can be applied easily. The paper describes a centralised irrigation model (My Canesim as shown in Figure 1) that provides real time advice, such as the advice shown in Table 1. The system was evaluated using the following criteria:

·      A comparison of the long-term performance of the irrigation advice given by the system to current irrigation practices.

·      The implementation of the system on several fields, with a focus on crop growth, water use and farmer acceptance.

Figure 1: My Canesim network

Table 1: The five different options of irrigation advice 

The paper found that measurements taken by farmers on rainfall and irrigation were generally unreliable. Some farmers also initially ignored advice from the SMS systems and needed reassurance that the advice would be beneficial, as some of the advice was quite contradictory to their usual practices. 

The paper states that the pilot project did improve yields and provide helpful advice, but farmers would need regular communication to convince them to take on board the advice. This is understandable, as farmers may find it hard to suddenly trust an external source of information that is being generated by a person who has not even seen their farm. However, I believe this has the potential to be a good method that can be implemented quite easily, given that many farmers nowadays have mobile phones. This is not to say I do not have any concerns with the model.

Here are some problems I thought of when reading about this type of SMS-based communication system for irrigation:

1)   Costs to run the system- there would need to be data analysers, crop experts and hardware and software engineers to ensure that the whole system runs smoothly. There is no mention of farmers paying to use this system, however, I imagine a lot of funding would be needed from governments or NGOs if this system were to be used on a large-scale.

2)   Accountability – advice may be inaccurate in some cases and there is a risk of farmers suffering devastating losses if the advice is misinterpreted or unreliable. Who is to blame in this case?

Despite the potential problems, an SMS-based model could be a step forward in making the most of irrigation schemes. Not only would it help farmers increase their crop yields, but also ensure that water is being used in the best possible way with as little wastage as possible, which is really important in areas that are water scarce or have little access to water.