Agriculture Library

The SolarSENSE project brings big data insights to smallholder farmers to provide them with real-time soil health data quickly, simply, and cost effectively. SolarSENSE harnesses data from both satellite imaging and from off-grid soil sensors to capture crucial information relevant to local agricultural production. The SolarSENSE approach uses a solar powered data collection hub to capture in-field sensor data, processes it, and present results to a farmer on a smartphone, with links to actionable (localized) content in an offline agricultural digital library–which is housed in the same data collection hub that processes the in-field data (the SolarSPELL agricultural library).

By providing real-time data from solar powered soil sensors within the farmer’s field and pairing it with SolarSPELL’s offline Agricultural Digital Library, farmers will have access to relevant information regarding climate-smart agricultural interventions. This information can be contextually applied to increase crop yield, reduce farmer vulnerability, and mitigate climate impacts.

With approximately 60% of the global population dependent on agriculture and 24 billion tons of fertile land being lost per year, there is a need for farmers to become aware of and adopt climate-smart and environmentally sustainable farming practices. With our offline, solar-powered digital library, we are hoping to reach smallholder farmers that would otherwise not have access to these climate-adaptive resources.

Farmers in developing nations are most dependent on agriculture for survival and are most impacted by drought, pests, and substantial crop losses. Our library content includes information on irrigation and water conservation, soil fertility management, agroforestry, and several other topics aimed at increasing farmer preparedness for climate change impacts.

In most developing countries, women dominate the agricultural industry, finding ways to balance motherhood, generating income, and caring for themselves. In Uganda alone, as of 2018 approximately 89% of farmers in the country are women, according to the Ugandan Bureau of Statistics.

At SolarSPELL, we believe in empowering women by providing resources that create income-generating opportunities and information on growing nutritious crops to improve household health and nutrition intake. Our library includes information on building cooperatives and microfinance groups, post-harvest techniques, and valuable nutrient-rich crops. We also provide various manuals on women in leadership and agriculture, management techniques, and decision-making practices.

Around the world, coffee remains the most popular beverage providing almost 25 million smallholder farmers with an income. With increasing temperatures and intensifying droughts, coffee producers are experiencing new challenges in production, and over time, coffee could become increasingly expensive and difficult to produce.

We are currently curating resources for our agricultural digital library to help farmers learn more about climate adaptation practices for coffee production. In addition, many farmers struggle with only making $3 a day in profits; therefore, our team is curating content to help farmers learn more about efficiency, management, and marketing of coffee production. With collaborations from coffee retailers, producers, and other organizations, we are working to curate or create the most relevant content to help producers prepare for disease outbreaks, climate impacts, or changes in productivity.