aiScarecrow Technologies is an AgricTech startup that leverages on the use of technology to control pest off farms. To start with, we focus on cereal farms specifically rice farms where we scare off pest birds which feed on their rice before harvesting. Cereal Farmers suffers pest birds infestation during the booting stage of their rice each season. With less or no intervention at all, farmers loose 20-40% of their produce to these birds if you they can’t afford manual birds scarers or can’t get their kids on the farms to shout and clap to chase these birds away. These frustrations have caused them financially and also the academics of their children where some have to drop out to assist their parents on the farm. Others also suffer medically due to the continuous screaming and shouting done everyday for 30-45 days of bird scaring just to be able to protect their crops and save for themselves some produces to make some money. Many farmers have lost fortunes with some Heart attacks due to these pest birds infestation on their rice, millet and sorghum farms
...Species identified so far among these birds are the red billed Quelea, red headed Quelea and the village weaver birds. The Quelea birds are ranked by the United Nations food and agriculture organization (FAO) as the worst destructive birds on planted crops. According to the FAO, the birds can destroy close to $70 million worth of crop world wide per annum which is a detriment to the achievement of the SGD goals on food security, zero hunger and no poverty. Quelea birds are described as a wild bird species with an estimated adult breeding population of 1.5 billion pairs found in Sub Saharan Africa. As aiScarecrow, crop protection company, we’ve come up with innovative solutions to combat these pest birds off the fields of these farmers. Using an upgrade of existing solutions, an alteration in the drone technology combined with science and environmental management and sustainability factors, we’ve been able to come up with affordable yet workable solutions for these farmers to rent and use on their farms during the period of bird scaring
Confidently I will say we’ve been able to come up with one of the best and efficient solutions for farmers over years of this infestation. A lot of solutions have come and gone and unfortunately birds get habituated to it but that of aiScarecrow stands out. We’ve been able to clear the minds of the farmers from being skeptical to being optimistic. And in so doing, we’ve been able to save the farmers time and Energy, save them their products from destruction and in so doing save them some money. We have also restored the joy and enthusiasm they lost in the production of these crops due to the seasonal pest birds infestation which they had no control or mastery over. So yes, farmers are happy and glad about aiScarecrow solutions and the comfort it’s brought to their work. Ghana still import 40% of rice from the western world. Sorghum and millet still can’t meet the demand needed in this country by the giant companies like Diego and nestle! It is my hope and dream that these environmental factors our farmers face causing them to give up on farming due to the stress, frustrations, poverty and mental health is solved. It’s my desire that farming of these crops become so attractive that the youth would easily venture into it right after their completion of the universities instead of going to seek for a white collar job. This is the reason why through innovation, aiScarecrow is contributing it’s quota to the Farmers, Environment and country as a whole by providing for them Environmentally friendly and affordable solutions for their farms so together we can achieve our dreams and also the SDGs of the United Nations. By extension we also provide agrochemical drone spraying services for cereal farmers and beyond.