Deploying Low-Cost and Full Edge-IoT/AI System for Optimizing Irrigation in Smallholder Farmers Communities

About 35% of the world’s food are produced in small-scale farms while only occupying about 12% of all agricultural land. However, smallholder farmers usually face a number of constraints and the water resource is one of the major constraints. The usage of smart technologies and especially sensor systems in so-called Smart Farming Technologies can be applied to the optimization of irrigation. Regardless of the irrigation technique, soil sensors are promising in providing data that can be used to further reduce the usage of water. However, despite all these possibilities, the smallholder community are still reluctant to step into technology-based systems. There are various reasons but prohibitive cost and complexity of deployment usually appear overwhelming. The PRIMA INTEL-IRRIS project has the ambition to make digital and smart farming technologies attractive & more accessible to these communities by proposing the intelligent irrigation “in-the-box” concept. This paper describes the low-cost and full edge-IoT/AI system targeting the smallholder farmers communities and how it can provide the intelligent irrigation “in-the-box” concept.