aagw2010 june 10 james kimani wanjohi precision agriculture in africa
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8/9/2019 Aagw2010 June 10 James Kimani Wanjohi Precision Agriculture in Africa
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Precision Agriculture using GIS
and GPS in Africa
By
James Kimani Wanjohi
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What is precision agriculture•
Precision Agriculture is a technology that hasbeen described as the ‘next great revolution in
agriculture’.
• An integrated information and production-based
farming system that is designed to increase long-term, site-specific and whole farm production.Leading to efficiency, productivity andprofitability, while minimizing unintended impact
on wildlife and the environment
Ability to manage land by the square metre instead of the
square mile
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What is precision agriculture CONT
Precision agriculture is an agricultural concept
relying on the existence of in-field variability
that requires the use of technologies, such as
GIS geographic information systems, Global
Positioning System (GPS), sensors, satellites or
aerial images, and geographical information
management tools to assess and understandvariations
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Uses of precision Agriculture
• Helps in adapting to variability (Spatial – changes
across farm, temporal – season to season andpredictive – difference between predicted and actual
results)
• It can be used to accurately predict crop yields
• Avoids blanket practices across the field. Actiondepending on soil/climate conditions at differentareas of a farm
• Optimize use and vary the rate of inputs, such asfertilizer, across a field based on the needidentified by GPS guided grid sampling.
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Components of Precision Agriculture
• Soil Sampling
•
Yield Monitoring
• Variable Rate Application (VRA)
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Components of precision agriculture
• Yield monitoring
Yield monitoring and mappingcapabilities allow combinesequipped with an AgGPS® FmX™
integrated display to accuratelymonitor and map harvested cropyield and moisture.
Farmers can use the recordedyield data to analyze performanceand create variable rateprescription maps using ArcGIS
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Components of precision agriculture
• Variable rate application-(Nutrient or chemical needed)
• Create a prescription map using FarmWorks Site (A division of Trimble)or
ArcGIS or get a prescription file froma crop consultant.
• Load the field prescription map intothe EZ-Guide 500 system or FmXintegrated display. It reads data andsends rate information to theapplication controller.
• Work the field and enjoy the benefitsof saving on inputs and increased
efficiency!
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Benefits• Making the agricultural practices economically
and environmentally justifiable
• Technologically feasible
• Increase the stewardship of land, water, andrelated natural resources
precision Agriculture is aimed at reducing production cost and increase the potential for greater yields.
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Challenges of precision Agriculture in Africa“Precision agriculture is virtually unknown inAfrica, except in South Africa and in a few othercountries”(Swinton and Lowenberg-Deboer2001).
Reasons• High initial investment required
• Most applications have been on large-scale farms
• Mostly implemented where labour is costly butwhere land and capital are less costly
precision Agriculture will be adopted where the technology makes more
efficient use of scarce productive resources.
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Challenges of precision Agriculture in Africa
Most applications have been on large-scale farms
• According to (Nagayets 2005), about 80% of the farmsin Africa are smallholdings.
• An agricultural sample survey conducted in Ethiopia
showed that 64.5 % of the farming households haveone or less hectares of land and that female-headedhouseholds have even smaller holdings (CSA 2000).
• In Egypt, ¾ of all farmers are smallholdings (Nagayets2005)
• in Kenya, smallholdings range from 0.2 to 12 hectaresand produce ¾ of agricultural output (Obara 1988,Oxfam (GB) 2000).
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Way forward in precision Agriculture in
Africa
• The way forward is taking the technology to the smallscale farmers through Government sponsoredinitiatives, NGO and continuous research.
• Take the message to the farmers that they have to getmore involved in using the emerging technologies
• providing training in the use of GPS equipment and GISsoftware for local technicians
• Need to ensure reliable operation and maintenance of highly specialized equipmentIt is anticipated that the wide acceptance of precision agriculture in Africawill enable the potential of precision agriculture to be fully exploited.
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How Do we reach the small scale
farmers
• Utilizing the digital villages by having user friendlyAgricultural extensions
• Utilizing web resources through public forumsand groups e.g. ArcGIS.com
• Easy reporting mechanisms to farmers through
mobile phones (text) and other applications
• Relevant Spatial agricultural data in the NSDI
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What do Small scale farmers want?
Relevant Content• Query and answer services
• Suggestions on best practices
• Alternatives to traditional practices
• Predictions on climatic condition and its
effects
• Prediction on yield volume
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African Success stories
SUDAN –
GOLDER , an international
company, working with ASBNACO - a Sudan
based company .
Golder uses commercial mechanised farming.As part of this project, the GPS and the GIS
technology has been introduced to help improve farm
productivity while conserving the environment. This has
been achieved through an acquired auto-steer tractor,fitted with a GPS satellite guidance system that controls
tractor steering.
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African Success stories
Benefits:
• Cut down planting time on the Agadi farm by 60%
• Spatial yield monitoring (GPS field monitors have also beeninstalled in combine harvesters to monitor yield variations withineach field and produce yield maps)
• Guide fertilizer, seed and agro-chemical applications• Controlled traffic farming (self-steering tractors that limit
movements of tractors to selected rows within a field to reduce soilcompaction and erosion)
• GIS-based farming information and management system mainly to
identify weed infestations, water stress, and crop pest outbreakareas.
• Variable Rate Application (VRA) technology make it possible toselect appropriate chemical applications and prevents unnecessarygroundwater contamination
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African Success stories
South Africa - precision irrigation
Farmers in South Africa using groundwater for
irrigation practice precision irrigation.
“This method provides a sustainable and efficient
system of using water and entails application of
optimum quantities of water over the area being
irrigated, based on variability in terms of soiltype, soil water capacity, potential yield and
topography” (Dennis and Nell n.d.)
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Resources
• www.esriea.co.ke
• www.trimble.com/agriculture
•
ICTS AND SMALL-SCALE AGRICULTURE IN AFRICA: ASCOPING STUDY- H ILDA MUNYUA 2008
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