To ensure that farmers in Africa’s biggest economy cultivate all-year round and boost productivity, Irigreen – an Algerian-based irrigation firm, and BIC Farms – a Nigerian-based business specializing in value-added services have partnered ton on subsurface irrigation in Nigeria.
Irigreen has developed a unique and patent-pending subsurface irrigation system that allows for the first time the large-scale irrigation of plants, trees, and crops, resulting in higher crop yield along with dramatic water and energy savings.
BIC Farms has adopted and deployed the Irigreen irrigation system on mega-sized farmland of hydroponic greenhouses to achieve an unprecedented level of scalable and environmentally-friendly food production.
“Our innovative microporous irrigation hose is the first of its kind that is clog-resistant, provides a very high flow rate and operates at very low pressure, hence eliminating the need for expensive and power-hungry water pumps,” said Lotfi Belkhir, chief executive officer and co-founder of Irigreen.
“It also provides the added benefit of greatly minimizing the growth of weeds, which in turn reduces the labour and chemicals required to remove them, while improving the crop yield and quality,” Belkhir added.
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Also speaking, Adebowale Oladimeji Onafowora, president and founder of BIC Farms said his organisation is delighted to partner with Irigreen on this game-changing irrigation technology.
“We have deployed their subsurface porous hose in our greenhouses and are very impressed with its performance, both in terms of increased crop yield as well as decreased energy consumption by our water pumps,” he said.
“We are confident that our partnership will help this African innovation rapidly penetrate the African market as it has both the highest performance as well as the lowest cost relative to its alternatives, such as pivots or drip irrigation systems.”
“It will also play a major role in enabling sustainable agriculture in the African continent.”
