Challenge
In Peru, access to information about climate and weather patterns is both limited and expensive. Data that is collected and provided by the public authority covers only a small portion of the country. Marketing companies that sell climate stations exist, but only provide services to large farming institutions because of high costs.
Solution
ICU offers Peruvian smallholder farmers an innovative technology that permits widespread sharing of information on climate and irrigation at an accessible cost. Their innovation consists of an irrigation scheduling system that helps farmers know when and how much to irrigate.
How Does It Work?
The irrigation scheduling system provides farmers and agriculture technicians with direct indications on the best irrigation practices. Through a climate station, the system measures air temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction, intensity of solar radiation, and rain. These data points are then processed in a GIS platform. Additionally, this platform considers soil characteristics and the type of food produced, and finally provides recommendations directly to farmers through texts, e-mails or notifications to their tablet. This game-changing solution permits farmers to switch from turn driven irrigation to a demand driven system.
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