AI was highlighted as a critical tool in water-smart agriculture during a panel at the World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit Dubai in December.
Agriculture consumes more than 70% of global freshwater resources and remains highly inefficient in its water use.
As water scarcity becomes more acute, AI will play an increasingly important role in agricultural water management.
Agri Edge CEO, Faissal Sehbaoui stressed the need to move from reactive to predictive water management, especially in water-scarce countries.
AI’s ability to combine multiple data sources, from soil sensors to satellite imagery, will be crucial to help farmers move towards it.
“Thanks to AI, we can make the best decisions. We can move away from reactive water management to predictive water management. We can adapt our irrigation programmes by taking into account all the data we combined and intervene before the plant experiences water stress.”
Sehbaoui noted that this does not replace the farmer or their expertise.
“Farmers are already smart enough. What we’re trying to do is give them enough data and insights to make the best decisions.”
The barrier to adoption is that farmers remain wary of trusting AI and education is a challenge when systems rely on complex inputs such as satellite imagery.
“The best way to convince them is to work with them and develop the tools with them,” said Sehbaoui.
The issue of cost
However, that brings up yet another challenge – cost.
Sehbaoui acknowledged that sensor-based AI solutions are often unrealistic for smallholders and stressed the need to innovate in this area.
“How could we develop AI tools at low cost? It depends on the type of farmers we are working with. For cashflow farmers, investing in water optimisation is an investment, not a cost. But for smallholder farmers, especially in Africa, we need to innovate. We have to find ways to get data at a low cost.
“Deploying sensors on small farms is complicated, but with AI today, we can obtain similar data from satellites. At AgriEdge, we have two tools: one sensor-based for cashflow farmers, and another that uses satellite images.
“We calibrate the satellite models using field data. Of course, the precision is not the same as sensors, but it is far better than having no data. This is where the innovation lies: developing AI using low-cost data and materials for smallholder farmers.”
Agtech firm SunCulture, uses carbon revenues and financial services to make climate-tech affordable for smallholder farmers.
“Affordability is a huge issue but the carbon market has been really useful. We’ve been able to now give a commercial, non-government, non-philanthropy subsidy to our customers to level the playing field. And it’s really impacted their ability to afford the product,” said SunCulture’s co-founder and CEO Samir Ibrahim.
“The most important thing is not necessarily about having the right technology but having the right ecosystem around that technology to maximize the value of that technology.
