(A column highlighting scientific, technological, engineering, and design innovation in Africa.)
Invented in Niger by computer scientist and social entrepreneur Maman Abdou Kané, the Horticultural Tele-Irrigation system puts mobile technology into the hands of growers, allowing them to remotely control the irrigation of their fields at any time and from any location using a mobile phone. At the same time, it enables the collection in real time of meteorological and hydrological data, including temperature, humidity, rainfall, solar radiation and wind speed, which can be used to determine if a field needs to be irrigated at a given moment of the day.
Abdou Kané established a private company, Tech-Innov S.A.R.L., in Niamey, capital of Niger, to manage, operate and market the system and its derivatives, which include an automatic watering component; a drinking water kiosk for rural environments, and an agri-info multimedia center. Tech-Innov also conducts research and participates in numerous initiatives to help develop the country’s industrial sector and contribute to society as a whole.
Aside from a mobile phone, the Horticultural Tele-Irrigation system involves a unit that is installed on the field to be irrigated. The unit comprises a system of energy production and drainage and irrigation system devices. The unit costs about 2.8 milion francs CFA, or US$5,880.
To activate irrigation, the client initiates a phone call by dialing 142. The call is routed through an Orange Niger server installed on the premises of Tech-Innov and directed to the client’s account in Tech-Innov’s database. Once the client is identified, the connection is made to the unit in his field, triggering the irrigation system is triggered, all in less than a minute. Clients have the option to program the amount of time the irrigation period should last.
Orange Niger is the local arm of France Telecom-Orange, one of the world’s leading telecommunications operators. The cost per call is 200 CFA francs, about US$0.42.
In a December 2011 interview with NigerDiaspora, an online news portal, Abdou Kané said he was inspired to invent the Horticultural Tele-Irrigation system because of constraints on the country’s agricultural production and food security due to erratic rainfall, recurrent drought and the use of archaic farming tools.
Irrigation is a key factor in crop growth and yield. However, a grower spends eight hours a day on average to irrigate fields with techniques that waste water, pollute the environment, and deplete human energy.
Niger’s abundance of sunshine and available rural populations, combined with the rapid development of information technology, including the mobile phone, make it possible to design and implement sustainable solutions to the problem of food security, he said.
Abdou Kané’s invention frees growers to engage in other activities along the agricultural value chain, such as obtaining inputs and marketing; increases irrigable areas and production; and effectively manages natural resources, including water.
The Horticultural Tele-Irrigation System was one of 10 finalists in the 2014 Innovation Prize for Africa. It won first prize in the first (2011) edition of the Orange African Social Venture Prize, sponsored by France Telecom-Orange to recognize entrepreneurs or start-ups that use information and communication technology in innovative ways to meet the needs of populations in Africa.
The system also won a medal at the 2012 Geneva International Exhibition of Inventions, the world’s largest marketplace for inventions, and was chosen by the Francophone Institute for Sustainable Development to be presented at the World Water Forum in Marseille, France, the same year. In 2013, its drinking water kiosk derivative won a medal in the competition for ecological creation at the 7th Francophone Games in Nice, France.
