Liquid Telecom and Twiga Foods have collaborated in a project that will see growth in agricultural productivity through precision farming.
Precision farming is the use of modern information technology tools to provide, process, and examine multisource data from high spatial, as well as temporal solutions for decision making and improving crop production.
The technology examines spatial variations in crop yield and soil and environmental factors that contribute to it. The technology has been applied before and has been instrumental in understanding the impact of spatial variability on crop production and management.
Liquid says that this development will open other opportunities that will be enabled by the state’s rapidly expanding IoT network.
The internet company has launched a complete precision farming agriculture IoT system in Takuwa farm owned by Twiga. The system uses several sensors, including weather stations, borehole water meters, sensors that measure irrigation water acidity and salinity, and temperature and soil moisture probes.
The system leverages Liquid’s low-power wide-area IoT network through OG Sigfox that covers up to 85% of the Kenya population.
The weather station will provide real-time data to deploy matching farming methods. Other sensors will also be critical in optimizing functions such as fertilizer application.
“I am excited about this partnership because, at Liquid Telecom, we strive to be at the forefront of technological innovation that continues to bring a positive transformation in many sectors of the society, including Agriculture,” says Adil Youssefi, Liquid Telecom CEO East Africa.
“Increasing business efficiency through digital solutions is one of the main reasons we partnered with Liquid Telecom. By using smart devices, we have automated multiple processes across the farm’s production cycle,” says Peter Njonjo, CEO, Twiga Foods.
