Farming is a crucial industry that feeds the world's population. The development of rural infrastructure plays an essential role in improving rural livelihoods and enhancing sustainable and environmentally friendly agricultural production. (Qinghua Wu at al., 2019) In remote locations, however, building and maintaining farming infrastructure can be challenging due to limited access to resources and logistical difficulties. In this article, we'll explore the challenges of building infrastructure for farming in remote locations and look at some innovative solutions.
One of the primary challenges of farming in remote locations is the lack of infrastructure to support agriculture. Roads, water supply, electricity, and communication networks are often inadequate or non-existent. And building these basic infrastructure elements can be prohibitively expensive, and even when they are built, they may be difficult to maintain.
Lack of electricity
To overcome these challenges, many remote farmers are turning to alternative sources of energy, such as solar, wind and hydro power. Renewable energy sources are often more reliable and cost-effective than traditional power sources, particularly in remote locations. Solar panels can provide a source of electricity for irrigation pumps, lighting, and other farming needs, while wind turbines can generate power for farms located in windy areas.
Poor water supply
In many remote areas, water is scarce or non-existent, making irrigation difficult. To address this issue, farmers are using a variety of techniques to collect and store rainwater. Some farmers are building dams and reservoirs to collect rainwater, while others are using innovative water storage solutions like underground tanks and above-ground cisterns.
Lack of connectivity
In addition to water supply, communication networks are also essential in remote farming. Farmers need to be able to communicate with suppliers, buyers, and other farmers to coordinate activities and exchange information. To address this issue, farmers are turning to satellite technology to provide communication services.
Absence of roads
Finally, road infrastructure is critical in remote farming. In many cases, farmers must transport their goods over long distances to reach markets, and poor road conditions can make transportation difficult and costly.
African agriculture is a bright example of farming with infrastructural problems. Lack of connectivity and bad road conditions lead to very low level of farmers’ livelihood. Out team has worked out a technological decision that among other helps to solve the problem with infrastructure. Farmer Charlie is an innovative agri-tech platform that offers information and connectivity to farming communities & plantations.
First we aimed at bringing smart decisions to farmers in order to increase their yields and optimise costs. But the reality showed that yields increase may be useless without proper infrastructure, when remote smallholder farmers are not able to transport and sell their crops.
Farmer Charlie brings electricity and Wi-Fi connection to any remote area. The tool is equipped with solar panels, connected to the satellites and contains different sensors that collect the environmental data. Such technological decision can help smallholder farmers quickly solve the problems with connectivity and get the access not only to the Internet and markets, but to the huge agricultural database.
We use the concept of IOT system in Farmer Charlie to help farmers optimise the use of water and fertiliser thus minimising costs, reducing waste, optimising the food chain and creating growth.
We do believe that innovative solutions like renewable energy sources, rainwater collection, satellite communication and road infrastructure can help overcome the challenges of farming in remote location.
-Marina Novokhatska
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