Water hyacinth infestations in rural ponds disrupt ecosystems, harm fisheries, and block canals. (Image source: ICRISAT)

ICRISAT's solar-powered water hyacinth harvester, designed and fabricated in-house by a team of scientists received its first grant, boosting its ability to be used with ease by rural farming communities 

The solar-powered equipment offers substantial benefits, including 50–60% savings in cost, time, and labour, while prioritising using clean energy. Being priced at under US$2,357 makes it an ideal choice for farmers who are unable to afford more expensive, sophisticated machinery. 

Water hyacinth is widely known to be a destructive weed that infests rural ponds, disrupts ecosystems, harms fisheries and blocks canals. Their ability to rapidly grow and proliferate into over 600,000 plants within 6-8 months makes them difficult to control. While chemical and biological removal of this weed is too expensive and unsustainable in the long term, manual or mechanical harvesting is seen as an option. 

The harvester was developed as part of the 'Sustainable Valorisation of Water Hyacinth Biomass through Aerobic Composting as a Rural Enterprise—A Waste to Wealth Initiative' project supported by the Department of Agriculture and Farmers' Empowerment, Government of Odisha, India.

Dr ML Jat, research programme director of Resilient Farm and Food Systems, ICRISAT explained that their experiments successfully demonstrated that 72,000 kg of water hyacinth can be mechanically harvested from a 1.2 ha pond in just two to three days by a team of two or three people. Manual harvesting however, required 10-20 labourers and took 18-20 days to complete. 

Additionally, women-led enterprises such as self-help groups (SHGs) can play a key role in converting biomass into compost, fish feed, or handmade paper, thereby creating significant socio-economic and environmental impacts.

“Water hyacinth infestation is a global environmental challenge. This cost-effective harvester reflects ICRISAT’s dedication to creating environment-friendly solutions tailored to the needs of rural communities that are also technologically and economically sustainable,” stated Dr Stanford Blade, director general-interim of ICRISAT, while commending the team behind the mechanical harvester.

Josef Fliegl und Bernd Stapel. (Image source: Fliegl)

Leading international manufacturer of agricultural transport solutions, Fliegl Agrartechnik GmbH and slurry technology and special solutions expert, Stapel GmbH recently announced their strategic collaboration aiming to utilise and expand existing synergies in the field of liquid manure technology and agricultural semi-trailer tractor units

The focus lies in developing solutions that make the agricultural use of tractor units more efficient and meet future requirements. The cooperation will drive forward product development and aims to boost efficiency by pooling the respective expertise and developing more efficient solutions in the field of slurry technology and agricultural tractor units. 

“This cooperation offers both companies the opportunity to combine their strengths and jointly develop innovative products for the agricultural machinery industry," explained Josef Fliegl, Jr managing director of Fliegl Agrartechnik GmbH. "We see enormous potential in the cooperation with Stapel to be able to offer our customers even more efficient and economical solutions in the future.” 

Users of CLAAS equipment can bring their machine data into CropX for visualisation, analysis, and creation of variable rate application tasks. (Image source: CropX)

Global precision agronomy platform, CropX recently announced its new digital connection with global agri machinery manufacturer, CLAAS, thereby allowing users of CLAAS equipment to bring their machine data into CropX for visualisation, analysis, and creation of variable rate application tasks

The CropX agronomic farm management system combines data gathered from satellites and the field with agronomic knowledge and advanced AI-assisted machine learning to offer a comprehensive understanding of what is happening in the soil.

Users receive a snapshot of field conditions and receive recommendations on irrigation timing and quantity, nitrogen leaching, and fungal disease crop protection. In addition, users can import data from the world's most popular agricultural machinery brands, of which CLAAS is the latest. The data can be visualised and used to create maps for variable rate application of seeding, fertigation, and irrigation, and harvest yield maps can be added for planning future seasons.

"With CLAAS Connect and the new interface with CropX, we offer our joint customers enhanced interoperability between systems," said Wolf-Christian von Wendorff, SVP of Global Digital Solutions at CLAAS. "The seamless integration of agronomic data into the CropX platform enables customers to boost their productivity through informed decision-making, thereby enhancing the efficiency of practices such as irrigation."

One of the project's key components is the development of a mobile application that provides farmers with real-time weather data. (Image source: Adobe Stock)

As harsh weather conditions continue to hamper food security strategies globally, a postgraduate researcher at the University of Leicester aims at getting more farmers in Kenya to harness the insights of Earth Observation (EO) technologies

Extreme weather events have led to reduced agricultural yields, especially for those in Sub-Saharan Africa that largely depend on rain-fed agriculture. 

A PhD project at University of Leicester focuses on exploring how EO technologies such as remote sensing, satellite monitoring and land surface models for weather predictions and soil moisture assessments can equip farmers with the necessary data to make informed agricultural decisions.

One of the project's key components is the development of a mobile application that provides farmers with real-time weather data, which empowers them to plan their agricultural activities with greater accuracy. 

“Earth Observation technologies provide a strategic solution to enhance better farming practices but require better strategies for communicating with farmers to allay any ethical and environmental fears and improve their adoption,” said Fiona Imbali, PhD student in the University of Leicester School of Geography, Geology, and Environment. “The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) highlights the importance of working with local communities and respecting their indigenous knowledge for climate governance and this research will be working with indigenous farming communities to develop participatory science communication strategies for the adoption of EO technologies.”

In addition, she also emphasised how the disregarding women’s challenges would also hamper technology adoption. “This study will engage communities from the onset of the research to understand their challenges, priorities, as well as their socio-cultural perspectives and more so for the women who have always been considered as a homogenous group in order to develop participatory, inclusive communication approaches,” Imbali added.