By Kefa Senoga
Charles Muganga, a final-year student in the Bachelor of Computer Science program at Uganda Christian University (UCU), finds himself deep in agriculture some days. Misunderstanding about what soil nutrients can yield the best crops and how data can clarify that brought him and other peers there.
When the fertility of the garden soil is poor, farmers get low quality produce. Many working the fields devise means of increasing the productivity of the soil, such as using fertilizers to add more nutrients. To apply the necessary fertilizer, a farmer must know what nutrients are deficient and what their soils need. The smallholder farmers add fertilizers based on experience, what is available on the market or what other farmers recommend. Because of the lack of knowledge of the genetic makeup of the soil, blanket application of fertilizers can lead to wrong nutrients applied to the soil, under fertilization or overfertilization.
Muganga and other Bachelor of Computer Science students came up with ideas that could empower farmers to increase productivity and profitability by understanding the soil data. The idea was presented at an agricultural technology event — the The Agri-Tech hackathon — hosted in Kampala in May at the Uganda Institute of Information and Communications Technology (UICT).
A hackathon is an event where, mainly computer programmers, come together to solve a problem or identify new opportunities through software programming. The May event brought together hundreds of young innovators from various universities to design digital tools that could help address critical challenges within Uganda’s agricultural sector.
“We came up with a simple testing kit with a data-driven advisory model that can test for the nutrients in the soil and advise the farmers on what kind of crops to plant,” explained Muganga, who teamed up with computer science students from other universities to develop the concept.
The agricultural technology hackathon was held in collaboration with government stakeholders including the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology and National Guidance, the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, and the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC).
Muganga elaborated that their solution also caters to monoculture farmers who grow a single crop year after year on the same land. He described how their soil-testing kit, which is AI-integrated, can provide farmers with clear guidance, in lay language, on the most effective methods to use to continue sustaining high productivity.
“The AI is intended to avoid using technical terms such as “magnesium” and instead simplify the information for farmers. It will explain the type of manure and the quantity required in practical terms, such as recommending 50 kilograms (110 pounds) of cow dung or chicken droppings,” Muganga explained.
According to government statistics, in 2022, agriculture accounted for about 24.1% of Uganda’s Gross Domestic Product and contributed 33% of the export earnings. About 70% of Uganda’s working population is employed in the agriculture sector.
According to Uganda’s statistics agency, the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS), between 2016 and 2020, there was an 8 percent increase in households participating in subsistence agriculture, with many more people switching to the sector during the pandemic as a result of job losses. The country also has an aging farmer profile — 55 percent of the heads of the households that practice farming are over 40 years, while 20 percent over the age of 60 years.
The solution that Muganga, as team leader, and his colleagues pitched earned them a reward of sh2.2 million (about $577).
This hackathon that focused on utilizing technology to address agricultural challenges saw the students from different schools develop digital solutions to tackle challenges in four key agricultural areas — soil health, inputs (seeds and fertilizers), value chain issues (logistics and post-harvest handling) and water management.
The digital solutions incubated at the hackathon are expected to solve key agriculture sector challenges, for instance low uptake of improved agriculture inputs, limited access to suitable financial products and low access to reliable weather information, among others.
Uganda’s Minister of State for ICT, Joyce Ssebugwawo, who attended the hackathon, said innovations, such as those pitched at the event, have the potential to offer long-term solutions for problems in agriculture.
“We must acknowledge the persistent challenges that have hindered our progress like limited access to markets for agricultural products and gaps in technology infrastructure which continue to pose obstacles to our development efforts,” Ssebugwawo said.
The next step for Muganga and other incubators is to actualize their ideas for the benefit of Ugandan farmers.
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“The fact that I am a scientist, very many people, which is quite unfortunate, do not see me as a leader,” he said. “They think I can probably play better with mathematics and numbers, than with dialogue and advocacy. But it is very difficult for an engineer to succeed if he is not a leader. We experience leadership directly in the field – managing people, time, equipment or money.”
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