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Smallholder farming communities are severely affected by uncontrollable environmental change; variations in climate, rainfall levels or extreme weather patterns can create huge post harvest losses, and destroy heavily relied upon food supplies.

With grain losses being one of the greatest sources of inefficiency in agricultural production, there is a critical need for mitigation; IoT technology can monitor vital parameters that affect grain quality during storage and regularly communicate the status for proper management of hard-to-reach storage locations.

Kumva Insights was requested by GIZ to deliver a scoping for the use of an IoT powered intelligent warehouse management system to support the Government of Rwanda’s Ministry of Agriculture (MINAGRI) in reducing post harvest losses across the country’s many, often remote, grain storage centres.

Using a human-centred approach, with a focus on collaboration and co-creation, Kumva Insights deployed a team of technical experts with regional experience in IoT, data structuring / analysis / visualisation and grain storage, to develop a comprehensive market study and recommendations, including developing a feasibility study, technical approach / system requirements and technical design / system architecture recommendations.

This exercise was delivered over a 3 month period, working with a number of external consultants and managed by our team in Kigali.

A further rapid solution prototyping and testing exercise is expected later this year, building on Kumva Insights’ core IoT technology offering as a proof of concept, with the goal for this to inform a wider system rollout across the country in MINAGRI’s dispersed network of grain storage centres.

Pride Farms is a leading market-driven agriculture company in Rwanda using professional, climate smart farm management and innovative technology to produce high value goods for both local and global markets.

Pride Farms focuses on organic farming, solar energy for irrigation, cold storage for continuous production and preserving quality, and regenerative agricultural practices and methods. They run their own farms and are starting to build a farming network of outgrowers to meet the demand from local hotels, restaurants and supermarkets as well as the export markets in Europe.

At the heart of Pride Farms operations is their seedling greenhouses which supply both their own farms as well as their outgrowers. The seedlings are the crucial first step in the production and the conditions within the greenhouse are paramount for growing strong and healthy seedlings.

Pride Farms has deployed our IoT remote monitoring system to track conditions in their Kigali based seedling nursery greenhouse where they were experiencing challenges with the quality of the seedlings and the quantity successfully grown for transplanting. The data collected is helping them to control the temperature and humidity within the greenhouse.

The data from our remote monitoring system is accessed by the farm worker responsible for the nursery. She uses her basic smartphone to view the data, allowing her insights in real-time that influence the way that she manages the growing conditions in the greenhouse. The data is helping her determine when to reduce the temperature or humidity for example by watering the floor in the greenhouse, when to start the irrigation in the morning to get the most impact from the water and avoid waste of water.

Akagera Business Group (ABG) is one of Rwanda’s oldest standing and most trusted businesses. In partnership with Toyota Tshusho Corporation, the trading arm of Toyota Motor Corporation, they co-own Toyota Rwanda, supplying a large number of the cars seen on the road in the country. Globally, Toyota has an aggressive carbon emission reduction strategy, and with this in mind, ABG wanted more visibility into how they were using power in their operations.

We worked with ABG Toyota to design and deploy our remote monitoring technology, allowing them to track power consumption across key zones in their buildings. As the site is multi-use, with ABG running different parts of their business from the same location, a strong understanding of costs by business unit is critical for planning and performance evaluation.

Each month our system delivers a report, comprising a holistic view of ABG consumption, as well as a breakdown by zone; these insights help ABG to spot and reduce over-consumption, see early signs of heavy machinery malfunction, reduce unnecessary waste (like office lights being left on) and provide a safer working environment for their employees.

Currently, our technology monitors consumption in the ABG’s showrooms, supermarket, wine shop, electrical appliances department, and car workshop, and we are planning to expand across other areas of the site in the near future to provide ABG with total understanding of power use on their premises. As ABG transitions to renewable energy sources, our data will also provide much needed insights on the requirements, system design and performance of their solar system once built.

Set within a walking distance from the city center, Park Inn by Radisson is a vibrant mid-scale international hotel in Kigali, Rwanda, providing affordable luxury accommodation in 161 rooms. The hotel has several restaurants and bars, modern conference facilities for up to 400 people, a state of the art gym, a large swimming pool, and a casino.

For the past 6 months, Park Inn have been using our IoT remote monitoring system to track their power consumption across key zones in the hotel. Whether staff want to understand power consumption by floor, or key rooms including the boiler room, laundry room, kitchen, offices or conference rooms, our technology gives them the visibility they need in real-time. Not only can they use our system to track zonal consumption, but also to monitor critical machinery including heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC).

By using our technology, Park Inn can lower usually unseen and unnecessary waste, create a safer working environment for their employees, and limit unacceptable downtime by using performance data to plan machinery maintenance schedules before malfunctions occur.

The Rwanda-Israel Horticulture Centre of Excellence (HCoE) is a bilateral initiative between the Government of Rwanda and the State of Israel, to reduce poverty and ensure that growth is inclusive.

HCoE focuses on building capacity on agro-technologies and sustainable agricultural best practices, including the introduction of improved quality varieties, production of vegetables in greenhouses, walk-in-tunnels, net houses and open areas.

The centre provides quality training and consulting and professional training programmes for agricultural professionals from government institutions, NGOs, higher learning institutions and private companies, students and farmers.

Since September 2017, about 49 varieties of 16 different types of vegetables have been tested in three cycles for adaptability to Rwandan conditions, and over 220,000 vegetable seedlings and 150 tons of vegetables were produced in the 2019-2020 season.

Farmers often over water their crops in Rwanda, washing away valuable inputs, and causing water stress for crops or the farmers under water their crops, leading to stunted growth of the crop. In partnership with GIZ Rwanda, we were contracted to design, develop and test an automated irrigation system at HCoE that could gather real-time data on environmental / soil conditions within both greenhouses and open fields.

Our system would then use the collected data, and a set of agreed parameters, to automate irrigation processes; limiting waste of costly inputs such as water, fertiliser and pesticides, whilst also optimising production by providing the correct amount of water for the crop. Our system de-risks the irrigation process by removing unwanted variables, helping farms to learn more from their environments, improve yields and lower their costs.

Our solar powered Smart Agriculture remote monitoring system was used as a starting point. It was then further customised to add irrigation automation functionality. The developed solution allowed HCoE agronomists to get a holistic view of both soil and air conditions across a number of different locations, then use this data to develop irrigation strategies which they could input into our system for automation.

The HCoE agronomists could set watering parameters such as minimum soil moisture and watering duration, then schedule watering sessions when data recorded was outside these set thresholds. This ensured that the HCoE team had a much more accurate irrigation system that automatically adjusted the amount of water for the crop.

Regular automated reports were created for the agronomists to discuss with their peers, showing conditions witnessed over a certain period of time, and how the system reacted to this (eg, less water when a storm is coming or temperature was low, more water if the temperature is high and soil moisture is low).

More on this project can be found here: Smart Farming in Rwanda – How farmers can increase crop yields through an IoT-based irrigation

KIPHARMA is a medical wholesaler based in Kigali. As one of the leading importers of medical resources in the country, they work with global sellers to supply Rwandan community needs.

The National Pharmaceutical Council in Rwanda demands that temperature is measured twice a day at least, and that these readings must be documented in medical storage facilities. KIPHARMA wanted to update their storage monitoring process, moving away from a very manual process to a more accurate, fully automated, digital solution that would give accurate real-time data updates as well as streamline reporting requirements.

We deployed 8 mains powered Smart Cold Chain remote monitoring devices, allowing KIPHARMA to monitor temperature and humidity data across a number of locations in near real-time (measurements are taken every 15 minutes, then automatically populate a dashboard). Our system gives KIPHARMA both a holistic view of their storage conditions, as well as the ability to drill down into the data in very temperature sensitive storage locations such as their cold room. The KIPHARMA team can now look at current conditions, as well as historical data, for easy comparison whilst they also have a digital track record that satisfies the legal requirements from the National Pharmaceutical Council in Rwanda.

With frequent temperature readings, we also set up SMS alerts to warn KIPHARMA if conditions become unfavourable, so they can react quickly and preserve the quality of temperature sensitive medication. Automated reports were scheduled and emailed to the client on a weekly and monthly basis, and raw data reporting capabilities were added to ease processes such as auditing.

Our remote monitoring system has allowed KIPHARMA to automate their monitoring processes, making data collection more reliable and condition tracking easier across the company. The ability to quickly react to damaging changes in temperature, allows them to mitigate risk, aiding the delivery of temperature-sensitive medication to vulnerable communities in Rwanda.

GET IT is a full service food distributor based in Kigali, supplying hotels, restaurants, and offices in Rwanda whilst also exporting produce. They source produce both from their own farm and directly from farmers through an outgrower scheme. By working with farmers, they are cutting out the middlemen who often add little value, providing their customers with higher quality products at lower cost and farmers with a better price.

In partnership with Great Lakes Energy, GET IT have deployed a solar powered chilli dryer in Rwanda’s Northern Provence, that can efficiently and sustainably dry large quantities of chilis for export.

We worked with GET IT to deploy a remote monitoring system that would allow them to track the conditions inside the chilli dryer, allowing them to see temperature and humidity patterns, and then adapt their environment to improve the drying efficiency.

Our solar powered Smart Environment remote monitoring system was a good fit for this application, as it allows GET IT to easily see temperature, humidity and light data in near real-time (measurements were taken every 30 minutes). Our system takes measurements from multiple points within the dryer, and sends this data via 2G/3G connectivity to a central database where it is easily visualised and evaluated by the GET IT team. The data collected gives GET IT valuable visibility into one of their remote assets, without the need to take a 3 hour drive and spend a period of time on site trying to make adjustments without accurate data.

Adopting a data-driven strategy from the findings allows GET IT to increase drying efficiency and reduce waste; helping them to optimise fan running times depending on environmental conditions including weather. These efficiency gains then trickle down to the surrounding communities, with the client able to buy more produce from the smallholder farmers that supply them.

Feasibility of IoT-powered automation for government grain storage facilities

Smallholder farming communities are severely affected by uncontrollable environmental change; variations in climate, rainfall levels or extreme weather patterns can create huge post harvest losses, and destroy heavily relied upon food supplies.

Organic Farm Seedling Nursery Monitoring

Pride Farms is a leading market-driven agriculture company in Rwanda using professional, climate smart farm management and innovative technology to produce high value goods for both local and global markets.

Showroom and Workshop Power Consumption Monitoring

Hotel Power Consumption Monitoring

Agricultural Monitoring and Irrigation Automation

The Rwanda-Israel Horticulture Centre of Excellence (HCoE) is a bilateral initiative between the Government of Rwanda and the State of Israel, to reduce poverty and ensure that growth is inclusive.

Medical Storage Cold Chain Monitoring

KIPHARMA is a medical wholesaler based in Kigali. As one of the leading importers of medical resources in the country, they work with global sellers to supply Rwandan community needs.

Solar Powered Chilli Dryer Monitoring