Overview
This project initiated a second phase of Virtual Irrigation Academy (VIA) to develop the system from its current function of monitoring water and solutes to a water learning and governance platform that can support the needs of smallholder farmers and address the information deficits at the scheme to national levels.
Approximately 20% of the world’s cultivated land is irrigated, producing high-value crops, nutritional diversity, rural employment and about 40% of global food requirements. However, irrigation in sub-Saharan Africa has failed to live up to its potential. Irrigated land is currently less than 5% of the total cultivated area, far lower than any other region worldwide, and expansion has been slow.
Virtual Irrigation Academy Phase 1 (LWR/2014/085) developed tools that measure soil water, nitrate and salt using colours as thresholds for action. The aim was to build a people-centred learning system that could capture and document the experiential knowledge of farmers.
The VIA can deliver three components necessary to improve the return on investment in the small-scale irrigation sector. First, it provides cost-effective technology to help farmers manage their water, nutrients and salt. Second, those responsible for managing, maintaining and repairing irrigation schemes need information on which to base their decisions to ensure efficient and equitable water distribution. Third, donors who invest millions in irrigation infrastructure need ways to track the performance of their investments and the feedback necessary for ongoing improvement.
The VIA has proved to be popular with farmers, such that by October 2018 the VIA had collected data from over 2500 crops in more than 15 countries. This unique and growing data set can be exploited to provide new value propositions for the irrigation sector.