Feasibility Study of Demonstration of a Real-time Monitoring System of Water Irrigation Quality for Rice Smallholder Farmers in Ararangua River Brazil

This project aims to investigate and improve the feasibility of undertaking a pilot demonstration project of a Real-time Monitoring System of Water Irrigation Quality for smallholders farmers - particularly rice producers - of the Ararangua River, state of Santa Catarina, Brazil.

The vision of this project is to meet the UN sustainable development goals 6 and 12, by enabling Brazilian smallholder farmers with technological capability to improve water management for crop irrigation, food waste reduction. In Brazil, 87% of farms are small and run by families, and they produce 40% of Brazil's agricultural GDP on 32% of its cultivated land (World Bank 2017). Despite their economical relevance, smallholder farmers face several challenges, including lack of access to technology and to basic connectivity infrastructure. Moreover, many of them are digital illiterate, which makes the technological even more difficult to close. Growth in the agricultural sector has contributed to increasing conflicts over water quantity and quality (World Bank, 2018).

The technological solution to be validated for demonstration aims to monitor the local environmental conditions, in-feed water quality from the river including salinity, and water consumption. The main benefits are in determining whether the water is adequate for crop irrigation, which is important for increasing food productivity, reducing of conflict management on use of watershed resources and environmental sustainability.The feasibility study will be realised in partnership with UFSC university and it will include a combined approach of market research with human-centered design. The innovation is based on the integration of cutting-edge technology developed by Camnexus: a network of low-power sensors with long-range connectivity for real-time monitoring data visualisation and predictive analytics.

There are several anticipated impacts of this project involving economic and environmental impacts (competitiveness increase) by increase in rice production and efficient water management and water quality monitoring, gender equality because rice production and family farming is mostly realised by women, impact on access to information and infrastructure by providing with real-time data and accessible connectivity infrastructure, and impact on local capacity development, by providing new knowledge and skills for local innovation and tech adoption capability, bridging the technology and digital divide.

This project aligns with Camnexus' vision that addressing the UN sustainable development goals (SDGs) can be achieved through partnership for co-development of technology in an inclusive approach between the technology developers and the end-users and key stakeholders, resulting in local innovation capability in developing countries and sustainable commercialisation routes.