This project aims to increase agricultural water use efficiency and productivity, reduce water demand, and protect mainly superficial and groundwater in Lerma Laja Minor Basin; this has been possible in partnership with Microsoft since they're a company with water stewardship goals.

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

The project will support expanded applications of IoT satellite moisture and irrigation management systems on 1,400 hectares 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 user requirements for kilimo's irrigation monitoring platform and support comparison of water use rates before and after deployment:

• Fields must be located in the Lerma Laja Minor 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.

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 20%.