Towards Low Cost Soil Fertility Sensor Systems for Smallholder Food Security in Kenya

粮食安全是肯尼亚政府倡导的“四大”议程倡议之一。肯尼亚80%以上的人口依靠农业获得就业、收入或粮食安全需求（粮农组织），很大一部分人口处于粮食不安全状态，例如，26%的5岁以下儿童营养不良（联合国儿童基金会）。粮食安全挑战因以下因素而加剧：人口增长导致土地面积缩小；农民被逼到干旱、低质量、易受干旱影响的地区；因争夺土地而产生的冲突；人们放弃游牧生活，迁移到依赖粮食援助的定居社区（粮农组织）。要解决这一问题，必须提高农业生产率。提高作物产量的一个重要途径是改善土壤肥力。优化土壤施肥策略可以概括为：正确的来源，正确的速率，正确的地点，正确的时间。为了产生最大的影响，这需要农民可以使用的田间测量工具来了解田地内营养浓度的空间变化，以及这些变化如何随时间变化。目前还没有任何技术能够以极低的成本实现这一目标。替代田间测试的方法是在内罗毕使用土壤实验室，但是这些实验室使用起来很昂贵，而且远离农场，而且提供的单一测量方法不能代表整个农场。因此，大多数小农对其土壤的营养状况一无所知，也不知道不同的土壤改良方法对土壤营养状况的影响。该项目将通过开发一种新型传感器来帮助解决测量方面的挑战，这种传感器可以被农民以非常低的成本用于定期测试两种关键的土壤常量养分，即硝酸盐和磷酸盐。该项目将从古代艺术和基于印刷工艺的设计中汲取灵感，结合当地可用的天然材料（例如烟囱烟尘、鸡蛋、报纸和肯尼亚境内可用的植物和细菌的酶），制造成本极低的土壤传感器。通过采用基于“共同创造”的理念，格拉斯哥的斯特拉斯克莱德大学、内罗毕的肯雅塔大学和格拉斯哥的格拉斯哥艺术学院将建立一项合作，为肯尼亚的小农提供传感技术的一个步骤变化。这将通过雇用一名来自肯尼亚的研究人员在英国最初开发传感器来实现。一旦建立了概念证明，研究人员将带着知识和理解返回肯尼亚，在温室试验中重建传感器和测试性能。该项目还将包括一系列研讨会，我们将让社区、行业和政策制定者参与其中，确保我们创造出用户主导的解决方案，以解决肯尼亚境内的粮食安全问题。从长远来看，这可以作为“盒子里的工厂”提供给农民，其中包含传感器制造所需的工具，或者简单地作为一个信息包，显示如何收集所需的资源并打印传感器。该项目还可能影响更广泛的地区：肯尼亚、埃塞俄比亚和索马里有2000万人处于粮食不安全状态（世界银行，2022年），他们面临着类似的挑战。英国的创新也有类似的好处，从这个项目中获得的知识和学习可以支持以自然为基础的零废物传感器的制造，以支持英国农业和向净零的过渡。

Food security is one of the "big four" agenda initiatives championed by the Kenyan Government. More than 80% of Kenya's population is dependent upon agriculture for employment, income, or food security needs (FAO) and a large proportion of the population are food insecure, for example 26% of children under 5 years of age suffer from malnutrition (UNICEF). The food security challenge is intensified by: reducing size of land parcels as a result of population growth; farmers being pushed into dryer lower quality land areas vulnerable to drought; conflicts resulting from competition for land; and people dropping out of nomadic life to move to settled communities dependent upon food aid (FAO).To address this, increases in agricultural productivity are needed. An important way to improve crop yield relates to better soil fertility. Optimising fertiliser strategies for soil can be summed up as: Right Source, Right Rate, Right Place, Right Time. For the greatest impact, this requires in-field measurement tools that can be used by farmers to understand the spatial changes in nutrient concentration within a field, and how these vary over time. No technology currently exists that allows this to be carried out at very low cost. The alternative to in-field testing is the use of soil laboratories in Nairobi, but these are expensive to use, far away from the farm and provide a single measurement which is not representative of the whole area farmed. In consequence, most smallholders are in the dark about the nutrition status of their soil and how it changes in response to different soil amendment approaches.This project will help address the measurement challenge by developing a new kind of sensor that can be used by farmers at very low cost to regularly test for two key soil macro-nutrients, called nitrate and phosphate. The project will take inspiration from ancient art and design based printing processes, combined with locally available natural materials (e.g. chimney soot, egg, newspaper and enzymes from plants and bacteria available within Kenya) to make extremely low cost soil sensors. By adopting a "co-creation" based philosophy, the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Kenyatta University in Nairobi and Glasgow School of Art in Glasgow will build a collaboration to deliver a step change in sensing technology for smallholder farmers in Kenya. This will be achieved by initially developing the sensor in the UK, employing a researcher from Kenya. Once a proof of concept has been created, the researcher will return to Kenya with the knowledge and understanding to recreate the sensor and test performance in greenhouse trials. The project will also involve a series of workshops where we will engage communities, industry and policy makers to ensure that we create user led solutions to address food security within Kenya.In the long term, this could be delivered to farmers either as a "factory in a box" containing the tools needed for sensor manufacture, or simply as an information pack that shows how to gather the resources required and print sensors. The project could also influence the wider region: 20 million people across Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia are food insecure (Worldbank, 2022), and face similar challenges. Parallel benefits also exist for UK innovation, where knowledge and learning from this project could support the manufacture of nature based and zero waste sensors to support UK agriculture and the transition to net zero.