Tech in Africa
Leading pan-African telecommunication group, Liquid Telecom, is celebrating its partnership with Twiga foods to achieve food security throughout Africa. The partnership has opened up a new world of opportunities in Kenya’s rapidly expanding IoT network.
Liquid Telecom runs a complete agricultural precision IoT system that aims at improving productivity on the Takuwa farm. The agricultural sensors at the farm comprise are for: soil moisture, weather station, borehole water meters, and sensors that test salinity and acidity in the irrigation water.
The system in place at the farm utilizes Liquid Telecom’s low-power wide-area IoT infrastructure particularly the 0G Sigfox technology which covers 85% of the country’s population at large. The sensors provide critical information to the Twiga agronomy team. A smart weather station provides data in real-time thus helping the farm managers to deploy effective farming and irrigation techniques.
Water quality sensors provide accurate information that helps in optimizing the application of fertilizer. Additional data collected are humidity, rainfall, wind speed, and temperature. Soil probes installed at the farm measure the temperature and moisture levels giving precise information on soil quality and irrigation requirements on certain crops.
According to Nairobi Garage publication, Adil Youssefi, the CEO of Liquid Telecom expressed his excitement on the new partnership. Peter Njonjo, CEO of Twiga Foods also seemed upbeat over the adoption of digital solutions to their business model.
