Farmers in Peru Enter the Smart Ag Revolution with EnviroMonitor

One of the greatest benefits of EnviroMonitor, our new smart agriculture system, is that it can be used in remote farming locations all over the world. We recently learned about a project led by a Davis partner in Peru, where a group of over 1000 farmers are harnessing the power of farm and irrigation data provided by an EnviroMonitor system.

The farmers are members of the Junta de Usuarios de la Pampa de Majes (Board of Users of the Majes Meadow), a large agricultural district in the Arequipa region in southern Peru. The board is in charge of managing the water supply for “technified” irrigation. Water in the area is scarce, so careful management of the precious resource is crucial.

Peru Davis installed an EnviroMonitor system in a controlled experiment that will be replicated in each of the 26 “commissions” that comprise the 14,000 hectares of Majes Meadow. They have provided valuable training for the farmers on how to use the EnviroMonitor system and to access data on their mobile devices and using WeatherLink.com to monitor all systems at the board’s headquarters. Peru Davis will be using this first installation to assess the feasibility of the project, which aims to empower famers to use technology to increase their crop yields and conserve water.

This initial phase of the project includes an EnviroMonitor system with a GroWeather sensor suite, a Gateway, and a Node equipped with a Decagon GS-3 sensor to measure moisture, temperature and salinity of the soil near the root systems of the crop. Another soil moisture sensor placed below the root level helps farmers optimize irrigation and fertilization applications. In addition, flowmeters are used to intelligently mediate irrigation in real-time from remote locations. While each of the 26 “commissions” of the Majes will use this base system, each will add additional nodes and sensors to help with their specific agricultural data needs.

We love that they held a “blessing” ceremony of the new test system, presided over by the president of the Pampa de Majes Users Board and Fiorella Roca Campbell of Peru Davis Instruments in Lima. We add our own blessing with wishes for increased yields at reduced costs!