By Felix Ochieng Akech

UjuziKilimo, a frontrunner since 2015 in the search for low-cost soil testing technologies in the field, has launched a new NPK sensor for organisations to use with farmers, at Sh450,000 per gadget, advertising it as the first spectral sensor linked to smartphone software.

The company, founded by Brian Bosire and Dickson Aguka, is no relation to the similar sensor produced by another company as Shamba Assistant. Its own new SoilPal Pro is around the same price as the Shamba Assistant kit, but the company claims it has more advanced technology, using spectrometry that means it is currently the closest to laboratory accuracy across the current array of field soil tools.

Using the small handheld device connected to a phone, “if we have good network coverage, we usually take all the data from the soil then automatically it’s updated in the software, then the farmer is able to get the results and recommendation in a span of five minutes,” said Shaffi Osore from UjuziKilimo.

“SoilPal measures nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, temperature, moisture and pH,” he said. 

The company reports higher accuracy for some parameters than others. “In terms of accuracy we are at 80 percent. For pH we are at around 97 percent, for NPK we are at 75 percent compared to the laboratory,” said Shaffi.

The app gives these nutrient readings and fertiliser advice, “There is no subscription fee, you don’t need to understand terminologies, or the fertilizer, the platform will do everything.”

However, while the technology is advanced, the cost is still a major barrier for most small scale farmers. Shaffi admitted this has slowed adoption. “It has been a challenge for the Kenyan market because of the price and the technology is very expensive,” he said. The earlier version was cheaper, but the new one is much more capable and costs Sh450,000 per gadget.

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The company is mainly targeting organisations, projects, cooperatives, and service providers rather than individual farmers, but reports growing use. “We have sold about 300, so far, for SoilPal,” said Shaffi.

UjuziKilimo is advertising SoilPal Pro as the world’s first smartphone connected spectral soil sensor, where the innovation is connecting a sensor that is spectral to this quality. “For other technologies, they do exist using sensors, but when it comes to using spectroscopy, it doesn’t exist, so we are the first company to use spectroscopy connecting it with the software that exists currently.”

This matters because spectroscopy allows the device to analyse soil using light signals, which can detect several properties at once and feed that data into software that gives crop and fertiliser advice. So while the phone connection is not new, the type of scanning technology they are using is advanced.

Farmers need training and support to understand and trust the results. But, in the field, testing time is now swift. “Let’s say somebody can go through the farm in like 15 to 20 minutes and once he submits the results in our platform it takes less than five minutes to get the recommendations,” said Shaffi.

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