About me
Dr Richard Stirzaker works with CSIRO Agriculture and Food and developed the Virtual Irrigation Academy with the support of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research.
The Virtual Irrigation Academy team have developed a suite of soil water and solute monitoring tools that give output as colours, which are thresholds for action. Data is captured through mobile phones and presented as colour patterns, which highlight water and solute dynamics, such as under and over irrigation, nitrate leaching and salt accumulation. The work is aimed at smallholder farmers in low to middle income countries and has quickly spread around the world. The team set up a not-for-profit company to scale the technology and currently runs two sensor production lines in Africa. Over the last few months, the team has won several international awards including the Water Changemaker Innovation Award at COP28 in Dubai, the ‘Smarter Climate Farmers Challenge’ from the World Economic Forum and a grant to scale up production from the World Food Program.