By Deepakshi Rawat and Nurfilzah Rohaidi 

What is the value of precision agriculture for the developing world?

Technology can undoubtedly transform traditional methods of growing and cultivating food, so that farmers can work smarter and yield more crops while increasing productivity. In low-income places that are vulnerable to climate change, for instance, digital agriculture can bring immense value and potential.

On 15 May 2020, the UNDP Global Centre’s Cultiv@te programme held its first webinar in partnership with PALO IT, a global innovation consultancy and Agile software development company. The webinar was an opportunity for the 31 finalists of the Cultiv@te agritech challenge to have an in-depth conversation with industry experts about the realities of what it takes to implement an agritech project in remote, lesser-developed areas.

Automating a greenhouse 101

One of PALO-IT’s recent tech-for-good projects focused on automating a vanilla bean greenhouse using sensors and other devices. Automating the greenhouse would have numerous benefits:

1.     Reducing manpower.

It would aid in reducing human work, as maintaining the environmental climate within a greenhouse is highly labour intensive.

2.     Increasing crop yield.

Second, the data collected on the temperature and humidity levels within the greenhouse, would in turn help farmers increase the crop yield. Here, solar panels powered a big part of the automation process.

3.     Reducing environmental impact.

Third, given limited access to power in the area, the project would allow the farm to use water and electricity more efficiently, reducing its environmental impact.

Furthermore, the project also looked to improve on their initial set-up based on Machine Learning techniques. These are a few things they did:

• Using a combination of ground sensors and external sensors to monitor the temperature and humidity levels inside and outside the greenhouse.
• Connecting these to smart switches and LoRa gateways, which are intermediaries that allow sensors to transmit data to the cloud.
• Using smart switches to control the fans, pumps and dripping system, maintaining an ideal environment for the crops.

The automation was achieved using 4 Raspberry Pi 4 devices on a database cluster. The controlling interface was created on a low-end tablet which was designed to be resilient. This meant that even if one of the Pi 4 systems stopped functioning, the tablet would not lose the connection to the web API.

The automation interface was designed on a low-cost tablet.

Guarding against problems

Operating in difficult conditions calls for novel solutions to the problem at hand. It was critical that all these connected devices were super low-cost – under 1,000 USD, would last a long time and were tropicalised, remarked Dimitri Baikrich, the keynote speaker and Chief Technology Officer at PALO IT.

What’s more, the team had to consider how to ensure their systems were resilient and adaptable, and figure out failsafes to guard against anything that could potentially go wrong, he said. The vanilla farm was in remote Cambodia, which meant erratic access to both electricity and the internet. It was crucial to make sure that the system worked even with no access to either of these, Baikrich said.

One key takeaway is that the realities of running and maintaining a farm are vastly different from the sterile confines of a tech lab. The vanilla bean farm, for example, experienced persistent dust during the dry season which led to the computer fans being blocked. Similarly, in the wet season, there was always a chance of water getting into the connectors.

Therefore, it was important to protect the equipment from these environmental factors – a challenge one would have never encountered within the four walls of a lab, noted Baikrich.

Technology will fail – here’s how to prepare for it

He left attendees with a key insight for getting a digital agriculture project up and running: Developers need to understand that any and all technological tools can fail – this is a reality that must be prepared for.

Therefore, they must implement appropriate bypasses and security measures to protect the farm and the crops from damage. Vanilla bean pods take three whole years to mature – much can go wrong in between, harming the produce and slowing down production timelines, Baikrich pointed out.

Hence, designing solutions must be made with the farm’s needs and priorities at the core. As he aptly put it, “It is the technology that supports the farm, and not the other way around.”

Watch the webinar recording HERE.

 

 

About the Presenter, Dimitri Baikrich

Dimitri Baikrich is Chief Technology Officer at PALO IT. He brings over 20 years of experience in technology expertise. To be at the forefront of technology disruption, he leads a team at the PALO IT Lab to explore all the latest technology trends. Along with managing executive decisions with regards to the technological interests of PALO IT in his CTO role, Dimitri also implements innovate solutions for large corporations and works with them to review trends that can improve scalability of solutions.

 

 

About PALO IT

PALO IT is a global innovation consultancy and Agile software development company dedicated to helping organisations embrace tech as a force for good. We work with clients to rapidly launch products and services, create new business models and prepare leadership and culture for the future.