Engineering Physics alumni from Bandung Institute of Technology had created an innovative smart irrigation system for farmers.
Farmers in Indonesia should be able to experience the benefits of the new era, which will increase their yield both in quality and in quantity.
What is Encomotion?
According to a recent press release, Encomotion is a system that utilises precision farming as it is automatically waters plants based on the amount the plants need.
The system has two major functions or innovation tools that will help improve the farmers’ work: Encomotion Monitoring and Encomotion Controlling.
Encomotion Monitoring works by detecting temperature, light, humidity, rainfall, and wind direction. Data collected through monitoring is sent to the server and the dashboard via the internet network.
For its part, Encomotion Controlling will process the data transmitted to the dashboard. It will ultimately be responsible for regulating the irrigation system of the plants.
Vegetable and fruit plants are very vulnerable to the amount of water. Too much water would cause the roots of the plant to rot.
However, too little water would prevent the plants from receiving the optimal amount of nutrients it needs.
Improved results
With the help of Encomotion, vegetable and fruit plants grow uniformly. The plants’ average leaf area is larger and the stem diameter is wider.
Results using Encomotion show an increase of 40% in productivity, reduction in amount of water and fertiliser by up to 40%. More importantly, time and effort are saved by as much as 50%.
Additionally, the Encomotion provided the farmers with more accurate data about the needs of their crops. The farmers are more enabled to act and make decisions based on the data they have.
For instance, if the humidity is high, the farmers know what to prepare to get rid of fungi. If the crop is not optimal, farmers would also know the exact cause.
Presenting a new era for farmers in Indonesia is certainly not an easy thing. The toughest challenge in this initiative is educating the farmers because majority of the farmers in Indonesia are aged 60 years old and above and have only reached education attainment of until elementary school.
Future developments
Encomotion is being prepared and improved for a larger agricultural land.
Moreover, it is also looking into providing solutions to two other agricultural challenges: fertilisers and pests.
Fertilisers are expensive, particularly if farmers are not aware of the correct amount of fertilisers to give. Giving too much will definitely increase costs.
Recognising this issue, improvements are being doing to develop fertiliser calculators.
They are also looking into how they can advise the farmers on product extraction. If the farmers are able to produce abundantly, it may be possible that price will fall and farmers would end up losing money.
The possible solution presented is processing the products first before selling if the number of commodities has become very large.
