Smart farms

: 13 September 2016; Hits: 14859

Smart system counts eggs, detects diseases for poultry farmers

Farmers can save on production costs, detect diseases and know the output of individual chickens in real time via mobile telephone by installing smart technology in poultry cages.

Domotele Technology's Machine to machine (M2M) system is customised to alert farmers of any health risk as well as the performance of each chicken.

Installed sensors collect the health or production data before relaying it to a safe domain in the cloud for the farmer to access it via the Internet.

The Internet of Things system can also be instructed to process the data and relay it in form of a short message service (SMS) for those who do not have Internet.

Domotele Technology Internet of Things Consultant Alfred Ahuta said installed sensors in cages help farmers know which chicken laid an egg on a given day. They also know the total number of eggs laid by the end of the day.

“The technology helps farmers know which hens are not laying. Such hens can be culled to avoid wasting feeds. Besides, farmers know the number of eggs produced per day; workers cannot steal eggs because they are counted and an immediate alert is sent to the owner wherever they are,” Ahuta said.

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The project has been implemented on chickens, but it can also work with other egg-laying poultry such as geese, turkeys, ducks, among others.

The are 1500 nesting cages housing 2 chickens each, and this is where the majority of the technology roosts. There are 3000 chicken with one blocked off for technology use.

The nesting cages have radio frequency identification (RFID) readers and weight sensors that track the contents inside and can determine if a hen has laid an egg.This puts into motion the egg counter process.

RFID tags are intelligent bar codes that can 'talk' to a networked system to track every product that you buy in the supermarket for instance when you are checking out.

The system can be customised to notify farmers of a diseases outbreak through a wireless sense node tag as well as change of the cage environment. Most farmers learn of an outbreak after chickens start dying. Early disease notification alerts the farmer to take quick action to prevent further spread.

If the sensors detect that the temperature in the cage has gone above the set threshold, for instance 25 degrees Celsius, the farmer receives a notification into their smart phones. They can turn on fans with the smart phone from wherever they are. The fans run until the required temperature is achieved, Ahuta said.

In the large scale, the chickens are caged in compartments within the ‘wholesome’ house.

Internet of about Sh30 shillings daily can support the communication of the data from the sensors to the main device, which relays the information to the Internet cloud.

The cost of installing the system depends on the number of chickens and the complexity of customisation one may require.

The Nairobi-based Domotele technologies focuses of development is on Internet of Things and M2M communication by building smart connected devices.

M2m refers to direct communication between devices using any communications channel, including wired and wireless.

Ahuta is based in Nairobi. He can be reached on +254723213125

PHOTO: Domotele consultant Alfred Ahuta works on one of the smart farming technology devises in Ongata Rongai, Kajiado County, on September 12, 2016. The device helps farmers monitor production performance, stealing, health and environmental changes even on when they re away. PHOTO BY LABAN ROBERT.

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: 09 September 2016; Hits: 20942

Agripreneur turns waste plastic bottles into aerial vegetable farm

One agribusiness innovator has found a new way of recycling water plastic bottles to establish a vegetable garden in the air.

Anthony Mutugi has grown 294 spinaches and kales on a 4m by 5m by 3m space. The 294 crops may require about 0.02 acres on a flat ground.

The Kiambu’s Juja area farmer has suspended six crops in the one-and-half-litre bottles with a wire string in a shed net wooden structure that creates greenhouse effects for quick growth.

Each of the bottles is lying horizontally with its bellies ‘scoped’ slightly to accommodate about three quarters of a kilo soil and the kale or spinach.

“My motivation was turning waste into useful resources. The speed of recycling plastic is far much overtaken by the production. That is why plastic has become a burden to live with. I decided to try and turn them, into a shamba,” Mutugi said.

There are seven rows and seven columns with each having six bottled plants suspended downwards. The suspension wires link the first bottle to the sixth one close to the ground.

Each of the crops is one and half feet away from the other and the space of one row to the other is about one and half feet.

The crops depend on irrigation. The excess water can drain via the uncapped opening of the bottle.

Wedding is done by hand in this aerial farm. Soil nutrients are not leeched since the bottle is non-porous.

It is a perfect example for urban farmers, who do not have permanent residences. They can move with their crops any time by unhooking the strings and dissembling the wooden farm.

The water bottles can also be used for planting other vegetables like black night shade along house eaves.

The house is also lockable, therefore, chickens, goats, and other animals cannot access the vegetables.

PHOTO: Anthony Mutugi, a Kiambu County agripreneur, working at his aerial bottle farming demo at Mkoma Show Ground, Mombasa County on September 2, 2016. The model makes use of waste bottles to generate income from vegetables. PHOTO BY LABAN ROBERT.

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: 08 September 2016; Hits: 17060

Neem oil farmer offering elephantiasis remedy to Coast residents

One Kilifi farmer has resorted to locally available neem tree extracts to control insecticides after realising inorganic pesticides repel bees, which are essential in pollination.

Alex Mwangemi grows sunflowers, but he discovered with time that bees were repelled or killed by strong insecticides, therefore, adversely affecting yields.

“Seed and oil production from sunflower solely depends on pollination. Shying away of bees means no yields. In the course of researching on the benefits of neem trees, I realised its extracts are safe organic pesticides. I have found it working,” he said.

According to the Agriculturalist, a US online information repository, bees pollinate one sixth of the world’s flowering plants. The site adds that 400 of these are agriculture plants.

Onions, carrots, tomatoes, beans are just but a few examples.

Mwangemi, who extracts neem oil for sale, soaks briquettes from seed husks in water over night. One kilogramme of briquettes in dipped into two litres of water. By the following day, the ‘juice’ is ready for use.

Ten litres of the concoction is applied on a quarter an acre of sunflowers.

“It is a safe biopesticide whose residue is broken down to harmless components. Some inorganic pesticides irritate the skin eyes, breathing system and other organs. But I have never experienced the same with either neem oil or briquette extracts,” Mwangemi said.

Azadirachtin is the active ingredient that gives the neem tree the healing and killing properties, according to the US National Pesticide Information Centre.

Although oil can be used as a pesticide too, the farmer prefers to extract it for sale.

The oil relieves pain in aching teeth. Its disinfecting property makes it a preferred ingredient in toothpastes, cosmetics, detergents, pesticides, among other external application products.

Using the briquettes as cooking energy and application of the oil on the skin also repels mosquitoes. This effectively prevents spread of filarial worms and plasmodium parasites, which cause elephantiasis and malaria respectively.

PHOTO courtesy of www.indiamart.com

A Kilifi County farmer is minting neem oil which is increasingly being used to control Coast region’s dreaded disease, elephantiasis, by repelling vector mosquitoes.

Alex Mwangemi makes more than Sh30,000 from one tree after selling one litre of the neem oil at Sh2,000.

Mwangemi harvests seeds twice per year from the neem tree.

“The giant Neem trees require no attention to bear the seeds. One mature tree gives 30kg to 40kg of fresh seeds. One litre of the oil is extracted from four fresh kilos of the seeds,” he said.

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Harvesting 30kg for two rounds yields gives 60kg of fresh seeds. The 60kg in turn yield 15 litres of the oil.

Mosquitoes are common at the Coast region because of the warm climate.

Application on the oil on the skin just like ordinary petroleum jelly repels mosquitoes, which a spread, elephantiasis, malaria, dengue fever, among other diseases.

The oil is helping control elephantiasis because mosquitoes that spread the disease cannot land on a surface having the substance.

Azadirachtin is the active ingredient that gives the neem tree the healing and the repelling properties, according to the US National Pesticide Information Centre.

Mosquitoes attack in the evening, when most people, especially men are enjoying ‘madafu’, the alcoholic extract from green coconut fruits. That is why the people believe the disease is caused by madafu.

The Kwale, Mombasa, Kilifi, Tana River and Lamu counties residents little know that while they enjoy madafu in the evening under coconut trees, the mosquitoes bite and spread the disease among them.

The disease later spread to women, who were not in the drinking spree after the mosquito bites. The pool of elephantiasis causing germs- filarial worms- moves to the man who was drinking, then to the family.

The Marikebuni Village farmer also makes cooking briquettes out of the seed husks. Burning briquettes too emit the repellent, therefore, keeping off mosquitoes.

Elephantiasis causes enlarging of body parts served by the lymphatic system. In men, testis are can be enlarged to attain more than five kilos. Lower limps of both men and women balloon to appear as those of an elephant, hence the name elephantiasis.

Mwangemi says the belief that the diseases is caused by madafu is yet to be demystified for the people to accept new remedies.

Mwangemi can be reached on +254724706579.

PHOTO: www.etsy.com

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