How Sentinel X Is Transforming Farming — Martha Solomon

Sentinel X is the latest agricultural technology from the United States to fight Fall Armyworm.

It has been deployed in Kenya to a breathtaking positive effect.

After a successful pilot trial in Kaduna and Kano, Martha Solomon, the general manager and project lead of Prexea Technology Limited, the company that brought the technology to Nigeria, says it is the game changer in pest control and boosting of economic crops.

Excerpts:

You mentioned Sentinel X which is a new agricultural technology; the type that has never been seen in this part of the world. Can you shed more light on this? 

Sentinel X is an innovative agricultural technology developed by Informiton, our US partners who are the technical lead and owner of Sentinel X model.

Sentinel X is an innovative crop protection technology to help farmers protect crops from Fall Armyworm (FAW) through early detection of crop stress and activation of the plant’s natural defense mechanisms. Unlike conventional approaches that rely heavily on repeated pesticide applications, Sentinel X supports healthier crop development by stimulating the plant’s own protective response, helping to reduce crop damage while lowering production costs and minimising environmental impact.

You know this is a new technology and there might likely be resistance, especially from farmers used to insecticides. How has the reception been?

Before we go ahead to do anything, what we did was to carry out a trial in Nigeria. The technology had been deployed in Kenya and it was working. So in the agricultural sector, seeing is believing. You can’t just bring a model or product in which you have not confirmed to be working. So we decided to carry out a trial in two states: Kaduna and Kano to see the effect of this Sentinel X. Over time the monitoring and evaluation report showed this technology works and the effect was so, so glaring.

Let me also add that Sentinel X is the overall technology. But there are two products in one. One is the Sentinel X Pest Control which is meant to replace insecticides. So the name is Sentinel X Pest Control which is actually the alternative for insecticides. It could be recalled that we did trial for both of them.

Apart from Sentinel X Pest Control, there is also Sentinel X Crop Booster; which is more or less like a fertiliser. So people think it is just one technology. No it is not. When we get to the commercialisation stage, we would be selling both but in three different packages. In other words, farmers can buy the Sentinel X Pest Control alone, buy the Sentinel X Crop Booster alone or buy both. So it is three packages. Though naturally, we will always advise our farmers buy the two together.

Why do you advise that?

The Sentinel X we have now is primarily for Fall Armyworm in maize. But the Sentinel X Crop Booster can be used for any agricultural produce. And because of the massive success of the pilot scheme, we have been getting a lot of calls from the ministry, farmers that we should make it available. Even the Sentinel X Pest Control can also be used against Absoluter, the pest that affects tomato.

This technology, is it like an insecticide or what? And how does it work?

It is not like an insecticide but the use of photonic light rays. It uses an AI tool to activate these light rays and make the plant activate its own natural defense mechanisms to become resistant to this Fall ArmyWorm. So we are not applying anything nor using any synthetic or physical chemicals as we all know. What we do is that since the plants have their own physiological defensive mechanism, we are only activating them to become resistant to this Fall Army Worm.

So it is like boosting the immune system of the plants?

Yes and then make them resistant to the worm and also make the plants no longer palatable to the Fall Army Worm to feed on. This worm is also commonly called stem-borer and it affects both the crop vegetative state, as well as the cobs. But Sentinel X makes the plants resistant to its attack from the vegetative state to the harvest stage.

Is this technology a one-time use?

Yes, it is. All the farmer needs to provide is the coordinates of the farm and we already have our field agents and agricultural extension workers in the area who we use. They are the ones that will handle it since most of the farmers are not educated. Once we get the coordinates, we can apply no matter the number of hectares. It is like magic from heaven.

Now, le’s go to the first trial.

When the pilot trial was carried out, did you carry the local farmers and other relevant stakeholders along? 

We didn’t do this pilot on our own. We went through the community-leaders and they introduced us to the farmers. We also went through agricultural agencies like the State Ministry of Agriculture, Kaduna State Agricultural Development agency (KADA) and also agricultural extension services agents. They helped in the monitoring and we also used National Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison Services (NAERLS) and the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria Research Institute. So we didn’t just go on our own. We brought in farmers, locals and stakeholders across different agencies and the Ministry as well.

What, specifically, was the level of government involvement in the pilot trial?

Like I mentioned, this Fall Army Worm has really been a concern to the government, smallholder farmers and commercial farmers. So they followed us to the trial and along the line, these government agencies visited the site of the trial with us and they confirmed that this model evidently worked. When they heard the testimonies from the farmers, they were very impressed. This Sentinel X cuts down extensive costs and manual labor as compared to the use of pesticides and therefore, rather than relying solely on repeated pesticide application, Sentinel X just clears the pest infestation.

Do we say it is a one-off then? 

Because the farmer has to subscribe to the model once, all through that planting season. And as the treatment continues you see significant changes between 14 to 21 days after the model has been deployed .

Did you have a control experiment during the pilot trial?

Yes, we did. Since we could not carry out the test in all the farms whose owners signified interest, some of the farmers that had farms nearby, such farms were used as control experiments for comparison. And the difference was startlingly clear.

I learnt you are going into Phase II of the pilot trial. Can you shed light on that? 

The long term goal of Sentinel X is to make it Nigeria’s leading pest prevention technology and contribute to food security, high farmer income and improve agricultural production. When we finished the first trial, we took the result to the Ministry of Agriculture in Abuja and then to Nigerian Agricultural Quarantine Service. They saw pictures and visuals from the field. It was a welcome development and they were impressed. It was actually the reports of the representatives these government agencies submitted that made them invite us to the Ministry of Agriculture and NAQS. But since we have different varieties of maize, and their different adaptability to weather conditions across the Agroecological regions. We have to carry out a phase II trial for revalidation of the efficacy of Sentinel X and its impact across the AEZs.

So how many states are you focusing on now?

We are focusing on the six agro-ecological zones in the country. These are Kwara, Bauchi, Kaduna, Nasarawa, FCT, and Oyo state.

From all indications, the government, stakeholders and farmers are going to buy into this technology.

How prepared is Prexea, your company, to meet up when demands surge?

Prexea Technology Limited is an Innovative company that is focused on delivering practical solutions that address critical challenges across agriculture and other key sectors. We are ready and that is why from the beginning, we had to involve all the stakeholders because they are very important. So we are very prepared because Prexea Technology has developed a platform where we can onboard farmers where we can collect data, monitor and carry out the treatment. Also, Sentinel X uses coordinates. We use GPS maps to get the farm coordinates and have them registered with us to input the data into the Sentinel X server and then deploy treatment.The parameters includes; farmers’ names, registration number, farm size and geo-coordinates. This product is not free but compared to the use of chemicals, Sentinel X is more preferable and suitable for the control of pests. So Prexea Technologies Limited has prepared a platform where all these can be controlled and we can reach out to farmers to large scale and commercial farmers, government agencies and so on. In terms of manpower, technology and other things, we are more than ready.

In a lighter mode, I think the technology will be affordable to the farmers.

Oh yeah; it will. Compared to the use of pesticides which you have to apply severally before you can get results with even a considerable percentage of loss, Sentinel X is just a one-off payment for the planting season. So let’s say you are subscribing during this raining season, the technology is going to be administered throughout the season from planting to harvesting. So it is affordable, reliable and even more effective to use.