Fact of the Week: AI Rice Farming Technology in Nigeria Reduces Water Use by 30 Percent
Source: Chukwume Ume and Sunny Ume, “Leveraging Artificial Intelligence Sustainable Irrigated Rice Production: A Case of Smart Alternate Wetting and Drying in Nigeria,” International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE), August 2024.
Commentary: Smart Alternate Wetting and Drying (SAID) is a new irrigation technology incorporating AI sensors into an existing low-water irrigation system, Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD). AWD has been proven to reduce water use and methane emissions by rice farmers, but is also laborious, which has discouraged uptake by farmers. The impact of SAID on rice paddy farming is analyzed in a recent working paper by Chukwuma Ume and Sunny Ume. The researchers employed this new technology on five rice farms in Southeast Nigeria, each of which was partitioned into three equal parts, one of which was irrigated using continuous irrigation, another irrigated with AWD, and a third irrigated using SAID. The researchers found that plots of land irrigated with SAID used the least amount of water, 30 percent less than the amount used by continuous irrigation. Additionally, methane emissions were lowest in SAID plots, with a 47 percent emissions reduction compared to plots using continuous irrigation. Finally, Ume and Ume find that SAID enhances the attractiveness of rice farming for young people, a population that has been dissuaded from farming due to its high demand for manual labor.
