TECH: Smart Farmers Use Smart Phones For Smart Water

America’s farmers and ranchers are using advanced scientific technologies to decrease their water use and water quality impacts while increasing efficiency and productivity to “feed the world.”

An “Explosion” of New Technology in Agriculture

“When it comes to technology and mobile devices, we’re seeing an explosion out there,” said American Farm Bureau Federation’s Dan Parrish. Parrish notes that these technologies have proven to be critical to “help farmers to in terms of making sure we use the right amount of fertilizer at the right time. We’re seeing all sorts of mobile, on-the-go technology that improve our productivity, improve our efficiency and … reduce our environmental footprint.”

Remote Sensing for Central Management of Irrigation Systems



Several users of smartphones for smart water

Wade Noble, President of the National Water Resources Association (NWRA), has similarly seen an increase in the use of mobile devices by farmers and ranchers to receive real-time information on water use and make adjustments in the field. Tractors are run using global positioning systems (GPS). Remote sensing technology is used throughout modern farm operations to determine how much the land needs to be plowed, how seeds need to be planted and how water is applied to the land through irrigation.

Noble is a water lawyer representing several irrigation districts around Yuma, Arizona. Among these are the Wellton-Mohawk Irrigation and Drainage District, which uses “a lot of remote sensing and management through SCADA systems, primarily managing canals and laterals that water can be delivered.” SCADA systems (“Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition”) are systems in which data is collected at remote locations and sent to a central computer, from which management and control decisions are made. SCADA systems have been found to be as valuable for irrigation systems as they have been for municipal water supplies.

For Wellton-Mohawk, Noble notes that this remote data has sometimes been tied to automated operation of the “gates” – which can be opened to allow water to flow from the main canals to “laterals” to allow irrigation of specific areas of land – or that data can be communicated directly to district or state agency personnel in the field (“ditch riders”). “What they will use is their smart phones to be able to pick up on what the information is, so they can contact directly the locations where the information is being … transmitted to, so that they can read what we read on our desktops on their smartphones.”

Old Water Districts Acquiring New Technology

While mobile technologies are often associated with young urban professionals, many older rural districts are adding new capabilities to get real-time data remotely to guide their decisions about water use. One such district is the Pecos Valley Artesian Conservancy District, which relies primarily on groundwater use from wells to supply the farming communities in the area near Roswell, New Mexico.



Bill Netherlin, President of the District, stated that his district has requested proposals from contractors to install online and mobile technologies so that district members can make decisions about well pumping and irrigation. Said Netherlin, "With the new system in place, the producer will be able to look at his water use at any minute, online, and will have a good handle on how water is being used at any time throughout the valley."

Reading the Roots to Determine Irrigation Needs

Over in another Yuma – in the Eastern Plains of Colorado, overlying the Ogallala Aquifer – the Yuma Conservation District has started a pilot project with farmers to install meters for remote sensing of irrigation and fertilizer needs.

“Farmers have advanced moisture meters in the soil to measure moisture and nutrient distribution down at root zone. [The meter] sends information to your phone or a computer. We couple that with advanced irrigation systems, which you can also do off your phone.”

As part of the district's Water and Energy Conservation Incentives Program, metered probes and advanced irrigation panels have been installed on "center pivot" irrigation systems through a cost-share program for area producers, with matching funds provided by the Colorado Department of Agriculture’s State Conservation Board.

Participants in this program also provide the district with their irrigation and energy usage data, posted anonymously on the online Regional Efficient Agriculture Communication Hub (REACH) database, so that the district can calculate whether the savings in energy and water offsets the cost to purchase the equipment. The district found the initial results in 2010 to be "better than anticipated," with more than 402,900 kilowatt hours (KWH) of electricity saved on irrigation circles - an average of 204 KWH per circle - and 671.5 acre feet of water was also conserved - an average of 51.65 acre feet per circle.

Reducing Agriculture’s "Environmental Footprint" and "Feed the World"


Digital and mobile technology has been a key component in the reduction of agriculture’s “environmental footprint” while increasing efficient production of food and fiber, which has become all the more important in the face of a growing global population and demands for consumer goods. The American Farm Bureau Federation has found that, between 1980 and today, America grows 87% more grain on 5% fewer acres.

Said Parrish, “Agriculture’s environmental footprint overall is reduced at a time when our population has increased. the troubling aspect of that is that is, over the next 40 years, we’re going to have to produce more food and fiber in this world than we’ve produced to date, and we’re going to have to do that in the most scientifically developed process possible, because if we don’t people are going to go hungry.”