Smart irrigation technology covers ’more crop per drop’

Placing solutions in the cloud but learning with boots on the ground, GEAR Lab researchers build low-cost, solar-powered irrigation tools to make precision agriculture more accessible. In agriculture today, robots and drones can monitor fields, temperature and moisture sensors can be automated to meet crop needs, and a host of other systems and devices make farms more efficient, resource-conscious, and profitable. The use of precision agriculture, as these technologies are collectively known, offers significant advantages. However, because the technology can be costly, it remains out of reach for the majority of the world's farmers. "Many of the poor around the world are small, subsistence farmers," says Susan Amrose , research scientist with the Global Engineering and Research (GEAR) Lab at MIT. "With intensification of food production needs, worsening soil, water scarcity, and smaller plots, these farmers can't continue with their current practices." By some estimates , the global demand for fresh water will outstrip supply by as much as 40 percent by the end of the decade. Nearly 80 percent of the world's 570 million farms are classed as smallholder farms, with many located in under-resourced and water-stressed regions.