Uber for Irrigation? A Sustainable Approach to Improve Dry Season Yield of Smallholder Farmers.
Abstract
In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), agricultural yield gaps due to water limitations are among the highest and most geographically extensive in the world with fewer than 6 Mha of land, ~3% of cultivated land equipped for irrigation. Barriers to adoption including loss aversion, capital cost, access to credit, and irrigation know-how persist despite the dramatic benefit irrigation can provide.
Here we will present our work to date on an irrigation service business that leverages a motorcycle-powered pumping system. The service targets farmers with access to renewable surface or shallow groundwater (~154M farmers) in SSA enabling them to "ease" into irrigation while providing riders with an alternative revenue generating opportunity. Ensuring hydrologic (and therefore economic) sustainability using this technology requires identifying deployment regions with renewable shallow groundwater and/or perennial surface water. We explore the use of open access hydrologic and agronomic datasets to guide implementation planning. Our technology consists of a motorcycle powered irrigation pump that draws on surface water and displaces it to farms up to 200m. The system is equipped with sensors to monitor engine RPM, time, and soil moisture. Our testing to date has demonstrated the economic viability for both farmer and service provider and is providing insight into how this approach could scale in a sustainable way- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFM.H51H1574L
- Keywords:
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- 1804 Catchment;
- HYDROLOGY;
- 1805 Computational hydrology;
- HYDROLOGY;
- 1807 Climate impacts;
- HYDROLOGY;
- 1895 Instruments and techniques: monitoring;
- HYDROLOGY