Introduction
Croptimal brings together FutureWater’s proven digital farming tools into one powerful platform with two integrated modules: Irrigation (formerly SOSIA) and Crop Suitability. Together, they deliver precise, location-specific insights to guide farmers and decision makers on what to plant, where to plant, when to plant, and how much to irrigate—maximizing yields while ensuring sustainable water use.
By combining advanced weather, soil, crop, and satellite data, Croptimal transforms complex scientific information into clear, practical advice. Users receive up-to-date, field-level recommendations on crop selection, planting schedules, and irrigation management—all tailored to local conditions and continuously refined as new data becomes available. This seamless integration bridges the gap between data-driven modeling and on-the-ground agricultural decision-making.
Croptimal is more than a digital tool—it’s an operational service empowering farmers, agronomists, and intermediaries with actionable insights. By uniting long-term suitability planning with in-season irrigation guidance, it helps increase productivity, improve water efficiency, and build climate-resilient farming systems across diverse landscapes.
Irrigation (formerly SOSIA)
The Irrigation module is a cutting-edge advisory service for smallholder farmers, piloted in Rwanda, Zambia and Ghana. It provides precise, field-specific guidance on when and how long to irrigate, improving water efficiency and crop productivity while remaining simple and affordable to use.
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Key Features
- Virtual Weather Stations (VWS) via Google Earth Engine: real-time and historical weather insights in data-scarce regions without local hardware or storage.
- Tailored crop-specific schedules: integrates FAO-WaPOR ETref and GPM rainfall; dynamically refines Kc using Sentinel-2 to match actual crop development.
- Dynamic hindcast updates + rainfall forecast integration: weekly schedule updates reflect recent weather and forecasted rain for robust, climate-smart irrigation.
- Precise run-times: considers pump capacity and dripline flow to calculate exact irrigation duration.
- Convenient WhatsApp updates: daily advisories and short-term forecasts delivered at the user’s preferred time.
Empowering Farmers and Extension Officers
The module was co-developed with Holland Greentech, ensuring a strong focus on practical usability and farmer impact. It is securely hosted for intermediaries—such as extension officers—who can deliver up-to-date irrigation schedules directly to farmers through print or WhatsApp. The platform offers affordable, user-friendly access without the need for advanced hardware or technical expertise, making it ideal for smallholder farmers operating in data-scarce regions.
Feedback from users has led to significant improvements, including expanded crop coverage (e.g., leafy vegetables and pulses), a farmer database that simplifies data entry, and performance optimizations for low-bandwidth environments. The system provides localized, field-specific advice that adapts to each crop and weather condition, with continuous updates throughout the growing season to ensure farmers always receive the most relevant recommendations.
Crop Suitability
How It Works
The module integrates satellite-based data products, weather information, machine learning and crop growth modeling. High-resolution spatial data—rainfall, air temperature, crop evapotranspiration, soil properties, vegetation indices and terrain—are analyzed to evaluate land suitability from regional to field scale. Historical climate informs long-term patterns; optional extensions include coupling seasonal forecasts for dynamic services.
It supports strategic planning at regional scale as well as practical, field-level planting decisions.
Key Features
- Crop-specific thresholds to identify conditions needed for optimal yields.
- High-resolution mapping at 100-meter resolution for actionable local insights.
- Seasonal windows with recommendations for multiple planting seasons (e.g., Oct–Dec, Mar–Jun, Nov–Apr).
Results
Outputs include clear, location-specific planting recommendations classified as:
- Very suitable: minimal limitations; minor interventions needed.
- Suitable: moderate limitations; standard interventions required.
- Not ideal: significant limitations; major interventions recommended.
For “Not ideal” land–season combinations, Croptimal suggests actionable field management options, such as resilient varieties, irrigation or drainage strategies, and targeted fertilization—always tailored to local agronomy. Initially introduced in Angola and Egypt, the module is expanding rapidly to new geographies, crops and data layers.
