Smart Agriculture in Uganda

Smart agriculture for subsistence farming is addressed in theory, laboratory and field. A non-profit, nongovernmental organization and two Ugandan women's cooperatives in the target area, the Wakiso District of Uganda, are partners with the IEEE Special Interest Group for Humanitarian Technology (SIGHT) at the University of Colorado in this effort to demonstrate cost effective, small scale, smart agriculture. The target area has abundant ground water but presently irregular rainfall. Manual watering is manpower intensive in an occupation already has poor return on investment. Solar pumps and gravity feeds are low priced, low maintenance ad consume no fuel. Inexpensive systems for solar pumping of ground water from a shallow (15 m) tube well to an elevated water storage tank for gravity feed are designed and demonstrated. A system with a 400 W pump and 5000 l tank is shown to be sufficient for a one hectare maize field. Inclusion of a 300 W surface pump with atomizer sprayers is used for a vertical mushroom farm at a second cooperative. A sensor and communication system that informs farmers to the state of dampness in their field has been characterized. The system allows farmers to decide when to activate drip/atomizer irrigation. Scaling of this irrigation approach is discussed.