Building a Smart Irrigation Control System for Rice Farmers in Kebbi River Basin

Water management inefficiency is a leading cause of rice yield underperformance in the Kebbi River Basin, one of Nigeria's primary rice production zones in the North West. This study builds a smart irrigation control system for smallholder rice farmers in the Kebbi River Basin, automating irrigation based on soil moisture sensor data and weather forecasts. The system comprises an Arduino-based sensor node, an IoT gateway transmitting data to a cloud server running Node.js, and a dashboard accessible via a simple mobile interface. The iterative model guides hardware-software integration cycles, with testing across three farm plots in Jega and Zuru local government areas. Features include real-time soil moisture monitoring, automated irrigation valve control, weather API integration, water usage logs, and SMS alerts for anomalous readings. Evaluation metrics include water savings percentage, crop yield change, system uptime, and farmer satisfaction. Pilot results show a 37 percent reduction in irrigation water usage and a 22 percent improvement in rice yield per hectare compared to manually managed plots. The study identifies power supply reliability as a constraint and recommends solar-panel integration for sustained off-grid operation. This research bridges software engineering and agricultural IoT to offer a practical precision farming tool for Nigeria's North West rice belt. Keywords: smart irrigation, IoT, Kebbi River Basin, precision farming, soil moisture