Coders cutting chemicals on crops

Saturday 20 May 2017

Students on the Digital Jersey Coding Course are helping make the world a greener place.

They have helped develop a program which analyses soil content and allows farmers to cut the amount of chemicals they use by coming up with an alternative, more environmentally friendly solution.

According to the students, the Credible Food Project shows it’s possible to farm profitably, while improving the quality of food and biodiversity.

In the past, the problem has to up-scale the project because of the need to manage the recorded date. But they’ve now found a way around that.

Once complete, their dynamic website will enable qualitative soil microbial assessments to be inputted into the site, analysed, and decoded so farmers can be given a regenerative management programme which means they will be less reliant on chemical fertilisers.

But the project isn’t just helping Jersey farmers, it’s proving a hit in Africa.

Glyn Mitchell, founder of The Credible Food Project, has just returned from Rwanda where farmers are being skilled up in Carbon Smart Organic Farming methods. "For the first time ever we have been able to train up Rwandan Agricultural Board Lab technicians to input data which we can then analyse and decode here in Jersey and then return a plan to improve their soil health and ultimately produce healthier food and water. Not only has this been welcomed by Rwanda, but we are getting invites from Zambia, Malawi and Moldavia as well as other developing countries,” he commented.

Tony Moretta, CEO Digital Jersey said: ‘’This is a great project for our coding course students to be working on and shows how the digital sector can work with the island’s established industries, such as agriculture, to produce innovative products and systems which will be used globally. Our coding course is a valuable resource for the tech industry, producing entry-level software developers who are being snapped up by companies in this growing sector.”