Enhancement of Prototype and Assessment of Product Marketability of AIRIN (an automated irrigation and nutrient management system) for smallscale farmers

Our AIRIN Management System helps small-scale farmers who want to improve their productivity and profitability by optimizing their time and energy and increasing their resource use efficiency to lower their total crop production cost. By monitoring real-time farm data, the farmers know exactly where, when and how much to irrigate and apply fertilizer. Unlike the conventional approach of guesswork in irrigation and fertilizer application using flooding and/or backpack battery sprayers that are very laborious and time consuming, the AIRIN system creates crop-specific recommendations and initiates critical farm operations based on the needs of the crops.

• General Objective

1. Increase awareness of sustainable agricultural practices of local farmers
2. Improve livelihood of rural communities specializing in agriculture
3. Promote precision agriculture technologies to smallholder farmers
4. Increase productivity and profitability of farming families without sacrificing the sustainability of the environment
5. Scale up farm demonstration to beneficiaries (farmers & farming families).

Specific Objectives:

• Improve the design of AIRIN based on feedback of initial users
• Field test AIRIN v. 2 in a controlled environment
• Develop a minimum viable product
• Protect Intellectual Property Rights
• Validate the MVP version of AIRIN
• Conduct a culmination activity among farmers to demonstrate the impact of AIRIN to their crop production