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Twiga Foods, a Kenyan tech-enabled food distribution platform is embracing the Internet of Things (IoT) to enhance its visibility, efficiency, and productivity across the entire food production journey on its Takuwa Farm.
This is through its partnership with leading pan-African telecoms group, Liquid Telecom who has deployed IoT solutions in Twiga’s Takuwa farm, with an eye on the long-term objective of making food security reality in Africa.
“Increasing business efficiency through digital solutions is one of the main reasons we partnered with Liquid Telecom,” said Peter Njonjo, CEO, Twiga Foods. Adding; “By using smart devices, we have automated multiple processes across the farm’s production cycle.”
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The system includes four different types of agriculture sensors: a comprehensive weather station, soil moisture and temperature probes, borehole water meters, and sensors for measuring irrigation water acidity and salinity, which provide critical information to the Twiga agronomy team.
The smart weather station provides real-time data that helps farm managers deploy the most effective farming methods for irrigation and the application of pesticides.
Furthermore, the water quality sensors provide specific metrics that help the team to optimize their fertilizer application. Additional data gathered and monitored on a real-time basis include temperature, humidity, rainfall and wind speed.
The soil probes installed at Twiga’s Takuwa farm measures moisture levels and temperature at 6 different depths into the soil, giving precise information of soil quality and irrigation needs at the roots of specific crops. This is set to directly increase yield and productivity and will benefit Twiga’s food security efforts during and beyond COVID-19.
The system takes advantage of Liquid Telecom’s extensive low-power wide area IoT network using 0G Sigfox technology covering 85 percent of the population in Kenya at lower costs than other technologies.
Adil Youssefi, Liquid Telecom CEO for East Africa said, “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.”
“Climate change and global warming have brought about unpredictability in terms of weather patterns. Adopting smart agriculture solutions that use IoT will enable farmers to gain better information for managing their input costs and increasing their crop yield, thereby encouraging food security in the country,” added Adil Youssefi.
