The International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have launched the IRWI-phone application as part of the Smallholders Farmers Capacity Development Project.
The project aims to increase water productivity, and sustainably develop and digitise agriculture through communication and information technology (CIT) applications.
The new app provides farmers with customised information according to their land, local weather conditions, and crop types. It extracts crop evaporation values ??and net primary productivity of major crops in Egypt’s Nile Delta region, translating the technical data into legible irrigation schedules.
The IRWI-phone app also determines the amount of water required based on the crop type, irrigation system, farm size, planting time, types of water pumps, energy sources, and soil type.
The app’s design and implementation was started in November 2019, with training initiatives for farmers in the app’s use commencing in June this year.
Egypt’s October University of Modern Sciences and Arts (MSA University) along with the Soils, Water, Environment Research Institute of the Agricultural Research Center also participated in the application’s development. The project received funding from the FAO and the government of the Netherlands.
Amjad Al-Mahdi, IWMI Regional Director in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, said the project aims to improve the productivity of land, water, and energy resources. It also hopes to raise farm efficiency, by expanding on the use of technology in water and land management, to enhance the information provided to farmers in Egypt.
“This goal will be achieved through building and developing a new application on evaporation management, irrigation and agriculture, using the [World Association for Public Opinion Research] WaPOR open-access database launched by the FAO in 2017,” Al-Mahdi added.
He noted that the project targets smallholder farmers in three governorates: Kafr El-Sheikh, Daqahleya, and Beheira. It will be used in the farming of five major crops, namely rice, cotton, soybeans, corn, and potatoes.
Al-Mahdi explained that the application has a range of benefits for farmers, of which helping them calculate the water needs of crops and the number of irrigation hours. It will also help them calculate the period between each irrigation session, schedule irrigation throughout the season, and record climate changes in the farm.
Farmers will also be able to monitor stages of growth and age of the crop, production volume and growth rate, in addition to tracking fuel consumption and cost. With the data placed into the app, farmers will be able to access daily statistics throughout the season.
“The most significant obstacle that developers faced in training farmers to use the application, was the weakness of internet connections in agricultural lands,” Al-Mahdi said. “However, we were surprised by the extent of acceptance and willingness among farmers and their need for this service.”
He noted that the app has made us happy as a working group, as it supports the Egyptian state’s Vision 2030 development plan. According to Al-Mahdi, the application will be available to all farmers in less than two weeks.
Essam Abdel Halim, a farmer from Daqahleya governorate who uses the application, said the most important benefit of the app for him was to calculate the sufficient period for irrigation of his land.
He added that irrigation occurs for 75 minutes, as estimated by the application, after which he can turn off the water and find out how much water the land has absorbed.
The application also helped Abdel Halim, a retired agricultural engineer, in effectively controlling the consumption of fuel needed to irrigate the land.
“We use the application efficiently, and if we need answers to any of our inquiries, we contact the developers and get the necessary answer from them,” Abdel Halim said. “With the winter planting season, our efficiency in using the application will be higher.”
The app’s developers are currently reviewing and revising the work plan to develop the application and qualify it for the next stage. This will include representation of the five crops in all their varieties, with the addition of all other major crops and their varieties.
Work is being carried out to expand the application to cover the entire country, taking into account the differences in soil, irrigation systems and climate between the different regions in Egypt.
Moreover, Amira Abdel Moati, Assistant Professor of Agricultural Extension at Mansoura University’s Faculty of Agriculture, believes that using such applications requires a specific segment of farmers who are literate. The farmers would also need to be familiar with mobile phone technologies to understand these applications and work through them.
Abdel Moati pointed out the difficulty of such applications and technologies for many farmers. She also pointed to the failure of some previous local experiences, even those organised by international institutions, in using such applications with Egypt’s farming community.
She noted the importance of training and follow-up among the targeted farmers by the developers and supervisors, to apply such techniques, which they say have great benefit in the future.
Sobhy Al-Sawy, a farmer from Kafr El-Sheikh, said he uses the IRWI application. He noted that it is the younger generation who can play a role in instructing their parents in how to deal with these modern technologies and applications even if the father is not educated.
Al-Sawy added that the application is easy to use and has contributed to improving farmers’ capabilities in dealing with land and crops with different water needs.
“The application records irrigation times and alerts the farmer to the times even if the farmer forgets them, as an alarm tool,” he said. “The application will have a benefit of 80% to the farmer, if it helps them identify agricultural pests in the field and guide them on to how to deal with them.”
Al-Sawy added that the feature helping farmers identify agricultural pests in the field will be added to the application soon.
Al-Mahdi states that, during the IRWI application’s design, “the Egyptian state’s vision for digitising the agricultural sector was taken into consideration, especially the extension services that strain the state budget”.
He added, “This has led to full flexibility in design, construction and selection of the operating system so that we can make a breakthrough in the agricultural sector, and make the most recent information available.”
This information would be available on a device in every farmer’s hand, to support them and raise their efficiency to make decisions to manage their field or farm in terms of water, land, seeds, field treatments and diseases.
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