Needs assessment of East African irrigation markets and technology proposals
Research contributions
Developed an interview protocol adopted by other MIT researchers
Described four market segments of farmer personas in East Africa
Mapped user needs and corresponding system design requirements
Used engineering estimation to find promising system architectures
Motivated three other research projects in GEAR Lab
Related publications
Van de Zande, G., Amrose, S., Donlon, E., Shamshery, P., and Winter V, A.G. “Identifying opportunities for irrigation systems to meet the specific needs of farmers in East Africa.” Water, December 2023.
Van de Zande, G., Amrose, S., and Winter V, A.G. “Evaluating the potential for low energy emitters to facilitate solar-powered drip irrigation in Sub-Saharan Africa.” Proceedings of the DESIGN Conference. Virtual. October 26–29, 2020.
Only 2% of cultivated land in East Africa is cultivated, compared to 20% worldwide, meaning there is a gap between the irrigation strategies available and the farmers’ needs. This led me to two research questions:
What are farmers’ price and performance irrigation needs?
Which irrigation strategies best meet these needs?
