E-irrigation

Nodes Digital Limited

E-irrigation

Sustainable Agriculture Through Innovation

Dhaka, Bangladesh

Bangladesh

For-profit, including B-Corp or similar models

Food security and environmental sustainability are the biggest challenges the world and Bangladesh is facing at the moment. To complicate the matter, in Bangladesh achieving sustainable agriculture is projected to become more difficult in the future due to climate change impacts, excess use of inputs such as energy and water and high production cost. At present agriculture activities in Bangladesh are conducted based on generalized best practices and irrigation is a major contributing factor that affects sustainability. For example, Boro rice alone accounts for over 40% of the total cereal production and requires 3,000-5,000 liter of water to produce 1 kg of rice. Irrigated rice makes the highest demand for water in the agriculture sector in Bangladesh. The source of water is mostly underground extraction which conducted using mostly diesel and electric pumps. Annual diesel consumption for groundwater extraction in Bangladesh is 4.6b liters, costing $4.0b annually. Use of groundwater in Boro rice cultivation is one of the main causes of declining groundwater tables in Bangladesh. Boro rice cultivation in Bangladesh contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions, primarily due to methane (CH4) production from flooded paddy fields and the use of fertilizers.

Our vision is to make agriculture sustainable and intelligent through data driven field level decision making to impact economic and social wellbeing of farmers. We developed and deployed solar powered and 4IR technology based Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD) irrigation system which we brand as “e-Irrigation”. The system includes 1) solar system with efficient DC pumps and smart controller; 2) IoT system for water requirement and physiochemical and environmental parameter monitoring; 3) Artificial Intelligence Models for water requirement and plant stress prediction; 4) Software system with mobile app/SMS for end user support. Use of our IoT and AI based technology solutions optimizes irrigation requirement by 25-30% and subsequent energy savings; and increases yield by 7 to 11% through optimized agriculture actions based on real-time field information. Due to water use optimization we reduce CH4 Emission by 46%, N2O Emission by 7% and Global Warming Potential (GWP) by 39.5%. If our solution is deployed in 100 hectares, reduction of CO2 due to not using diesel for underground water extraction can be 134599 Kg in a year (2 seasons). We have already commercially implemented our solution in the North West regions of Bangladesh over 40 Ha of land impacting 1000+ farmers.

Our most valuable customers are farmers, agribusinesses, and cooperatives seeking to optimize productivity and sustainability through technologies. Our USP is ensuring "Farmer Resource Efficiency and Value Addition" measured by water usage reduction, crop yield improvement, and cost savings per hectare. Regular irrigation requires on an average 225 liters to 255 liters of diesel to irrigate 1 Ha of land per ‘BORO’ crop cycle. Use of our technology results in roughly $49.40 to $57.63 benefit for farmers in water savings due to irrigation optimization. Furthermore, a resultant yield increase of 10% constitutes additional value of $113.20 per Ha. Furthermore, we have trialed an innovative Platform-as-a-Service (PAAS) business model where the entirety of the system including IoT hardware and accessories, maintenance, repair and software services is rented to farmers per season. This eliminates the initial overhead cost burden from end users such as contract farmers and farmers which increases the chance of technology uptake. It should be further mentioned, younger generations in Bangladesh are becoming disinterested in farming in recent years as exemplified by labor shortages during harvesting season. From our experience, the use of modern technology in farming can attract younger generation to be involved in farming.