“Revolutionary affordable automation and remote management technology for high-value crops, designed to enable smallholder farmers to sustainably and steadily invest and grow their livelihoods towards financial stability, starting with the limited resources available to them.”
With the goal of revolutionizing the profitability of smallholder agriculture in Sri Lanka, Dialog Axiata PLC, with several university research partners, developed and introduced the Saru IoT (Internet of Things) agriculture automation kit. Saru is focused on creating an affordable pathway for smallholder farmers to radically improve their incomes. High-value crops, often requiring protected house conditions (commonly, though inaccurately, known as greenhouses), require a far greater degree of supervision, precision and control, with the resulting time demands, apart from the investment cost, making it unaffordable for smallholder farmers. Saru is designed to, firstly, be affordable enough for a smallholder farmer to be able to consider such an initial investment. Secondly, Saru automates the monitoring and interventions required to independently manage the crops, which would otherwise create unsustainable demands on the farmer’s time, preventing other activities, only alerting the farmer for critical needs. Thirdly, Saru is designed as a complete solution where, with average 150-300% yield increases, the investment is paid back within 1-2 growing cycles – creating a feasible and steady pathway for farmers to reinvest and grow their incomes. This novel introduction is aligned with the global Sustainability Development Goal 9 – Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure.
