Tell our readers about SWIIM?
SWIIM stands for Sustainable Water and Innovative Irrigation Management. The company started off as a research project almost 10 years ago. It was funded initially by state and federal grants and included research by the USDA. Colorado State University, Utah State University and professors from Fresno State University. They were trying to find a way to protect growers in the western US from the difficult water availability situation at that time. Western Growers Association, located in Irvine, contacted us and was interested in how SWIIM could help their membership because their focus is on labor issues, water availability, and Ag policy. We partnered with Western Growers, they invested in us and now help us distribute SWIIM to growers throughout California. Since then, we’ve been growing rapidly.
All of the individuals at SWIIM have an agriculture background and are worried about the sustainability of Ag. There is an abundance of input options for farming, except for when it comes to water availability, which is finite. Our company wants to protect the grower’s water supply and help them utilize it more efficiently. We don’t want to see more regulations; however it is reality. Farmers need more and more information about their water application and crop water consumption to survive into the future.
Can you tell us a little bit more about the variety of water sources that farmers are able to count on?
There are three main water sources for growers to take advantage of - precipitation, groundwater, and surface water. We measure application and then calculate runoff, subsurface return flows, evaporation, etc. and then provide our customers with a statement of water use. Statements are displayed on either the standard report or through our interactive dashboard, so the grower can choose which they prefer.
Why is it so important for growers to know about SWIIM?
Counting every drop of water matters! Water, agriculture’s most important resource, is in perennial danger, and goes largely unaccounted. We utilize water balance measurements, agronomic chartering, and irrigation efficiency analysis. Ultimately, we offer famers a planning, benchmarking and compliance tool.
California is a ripe area for water conflict, so it is important to consider your solutions.
Can you tell us a little bit about the various services you offer?
We use 50 different equipment data partners, employ data science to quality check results and offer software that ensures quality, easy to read information. Some of the various data we provide in our software includes flow, crop consumption, climatic, regional, and satellite data. All of this data is meshed together to provide the key information necessary for a grower today, and into the future. We also specialize in hydrology, cloud service, water engineering, equipment configuration, and processing significant amount of data points (over 80 million a month) in a seamless fashion.
Why should growers choose SWIIM?
There really is no other company like SWIIM. We are incomparable to other consulting companies because SWIIM integrates so many different aspects (water balance graphs, water deliveries, consumption) that other companies do not have the resources to provide. We see that our clients do pretty well, but want to increase efficiency, or that they are really struggling with their water and data in general. Both of these problems can be solved with better data, which SWIIM can provide.
We know that our customer will have all of the data they would ever need and ultimately that’s what you need to successfully grow.
We’ve also been at this for a long time. SWIIM is the only company which has strategic development strictly for water accounting and we’ve built a solid reputation for accuracy.
Generally, our clients that have been using SWIIM for the past few years found a 10-20% reduction in overall water usage. Clients chose to use SWIIM throughout the entire year, getting data updates regularly, to prepare for all seasons becoming better each year with their water use.
Learn more at: swiim.com.
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