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%以上的人口依赖农业满足就业、收入或粮食安全需求(粮农组织)，很大一部分人口粮食不安全，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原因而加剧：人口增长导致土地面积缩小；农民被迫进入更干燥、质量较低的易受干旱的土地地区；争夺土地造成冲突；人们退出游牧生活，搬到依赖粮食援助的定居社区(粮农组织)。提高作物产量的一个重要途径是提高土壤肥力。优化土壤施肥策略可以总结为：合适的来源、合适的用量、合适的地点、合适的时间。为了产生最大的影响，这需要田间测量工具，农民可以使用这些工具来了解一块土地内养分浓度的空间变化，以及这些变化是如何随时间变化的。目前还不存在允许以非常低的成本进行这项工作的技术。实地测试的替代方法是使用内罗毕的土壤实验室，但这些实验室的使用费用很高，远离农场，而且提供的单一测量不能代表整个耕作区域。因此，大多数小农对他们土壤的营养状况以及它如何随着不同的土壤改良方法而变化一无所知。该项目将通过开发一种新的传感器来帮助解决测量挑战，这种传感器可以非常低的成本供农民使用，定期测试两种关键的土壤宏观营养物质，即硝酸盐和磷酸盐。该项目将从基于古代艺术和设计的印刷工艺中获得灵感，并结合当地可获得的自然材料(例如，烟囱烟灰、鸡蛋、报纸和肯尼亚境内可获得的植物和细菌中的酶)来制造极低成本的土壤传感器。通过采用“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合作，为肯尼亚的小农带来传感技术的阶段性变化。这将通过最初在英国开发传感器，并从肯尼亚聘请一名研究人员来实现。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，重新制造传感器并在温室试验中测试性能。该项目还将包括一系列研讨会，在这些研讨会上，我们将与社区、行业和政策制定者合作，确保我们创建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，这些解决方案可以作为包含传感器制造所需工具的“盒子里的工厂”交付给农民，也可以简单地作为一个信息包，展示如何收集所需资源并打印传感器。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的2000万人粮食不安全(世界银行，2022年)，并面临类似的挑战。英国的创新也有类似的好处，该项目的知识和学习可以支持基于自然和零废物传感器的制造，以支持英国的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.