Low-Cost Soil Diagnostics

Poor soil health along with a lack of information-based sensing and service infrastructure to address this issue is a serious challenge for agricultural growth in India. On a grand scale, this project aims to alleviate India’s food security problem by increasing crop yields to meet the demands of a burgeoning population. Subsequently, we also hope to alleviate the poverty that many farmers face by empowering them to be more knowledgeable about their soil, and thereby more resource-efficient and profitable.

This research will explore the development of low-cost point-of-use sensors for soil diagnostics in rural India. Currently, soil testing in India is an expensive and time-consuming service that many farmers choose not to avail themselves of. The lack of a robust and inexpensive soil testing and information feedback system presents an opportunity to design an alternative solution to this problem.

The current vision entails the creating a low-cost sensor to measure local soil chemistry and designing the associated information feedback to interpret and act upon the results. The project combines advanced techniques in surface chemistry, manufacturing, and information systems.