The goal of this project is to increase agricultural water use efficiency and productivity, to reduce water demand, and protect mainly groundwater in the Yucatan Basin of Mexico.

A farmers retention plan centered on adopting and renewing irrigation management practices has been devised throughout the project's implementation, scheduled to conclude in 2026. As part of this program, farmers are encouraged to participate in ongoing training sessions and receive economic incentives for reducing their water consumption. Each year, a record of active farmers who utilize our service will be maintained.

The project will support expanded applications of IoT satellite moisture and irrigation management systems on 360 ha of private irrigated family farms to decrease water pumping/diversion. The Kilimo project team uses a Big Data solution that includes a web-based app, annual subscription fee, satellite data, crop soil moisture tests, and measurement of precipitation and irrigation inputs to provide real time irrigation demand information. The technology does not require any hardware to be installed at the farm level and supports tailored irrigation scheduling for a variety of high value crops.

The following selection criteria were used to identify farmers who were best suited to participate in the program to meet specific use requirements for Kilimo’s irrigation monitoring platform and support comparison of water use rates before and after deployment:

• Fields must be located in the Yucatan basin.
• The farmer must possess irrigation records.
• The farmer must be available to meet with Kilimo’s agronomy team.
• The farm must have a dependable source of water available for irrigation.

Kilimo will deploy the IoT irrigation management system on 360 total ha over three irrigation seasons starting in March 2024.

It has been shown that less than 10% of farmers worldwide use (or have access to) technology to guide water application. Using Kilimo's technology, farmers have reduced their water withdrawal from the surface and groundwater sources by at least 13%. Additionally, less water withdrawal represents less pumping costs and energy for farmers and, therefore, a reduction in carbon emissions from electric power use.