www.devex.com Open in urlscan Pro
54.87.90.226  Public Scan

Form analysis
1 forms found in the DOM

GET /news/search

<form action="/news/search" method="get">
  <div class="input-group"><input class="form-control" name="query[]" placeholder="e.g. health, energy">
    <div class="input-group-btn"><button class="btn btn-line-default"><i class="fal icon-search text-blue"></i></button></div>
  </div>
</form>

Text Content

 * News
 * Jobs
 * Funding
 * Experts
 * Organizations
 * Menu

 * 
   About us
 * 
   Membership plans
 * 
   Advertise

Join DevexSign in
Devex is the media platform for the global development community

Join Devex
Sign in


NEWS

 * Latest news
 * News search
 * Career center
 * Health
 * Finance
 * Food
 * Newsletters
 * Focus areas
 * Try Devex Pro


JOBS

 * Job search
 * Post a job
 * Find employers
 * Upcoming career events
 * Top employers
 * CV Writing
 * Career Account


FUNDING

 * Funding search
 * Funding center
 * Find partners
 * Get funding access


EXPERTS

 * Experts search
 * Recruiting Insight
 * Candidate Sourcing
 * Executive Search
 * Employer Branding
 * Talent Advisory
 * Recruitment Account


ORGANIZATIONS

 * Organization search


EVENTS

 * Upcoming and Past Events
 * Partner on an Event


ENGAGE WITH US

 * Membership plans
 * Partner with us
 * Advertise
 * Sponsor an event
 * About us
 * Support
 * Careers at Devex




CONTENT SERIES

WOMEN RISING

ROOTS OF CHANGE

CTRL SHIFT EQUALITY

TALKING TB

MATERNITY MATTERS

 * 
   View profile
 * My Devex
 * Update my profile % complete
 * Account & privacy settings
 * My saved jobs
 * Manage newsletters
 * Support
 * Sign out

Latest newsNews searchCareer centerHealthFinanceFoodNewslettersFocus AreasTry
Devex Pro
 * Inside Development
 * Techonlogy


THE AI APPS HELPING THE WORLD'S LOW-INCOME FARMERS WORK SMARTER

Smartphone apps and chatbots are diagnosing pests and farm animal diseases and
dispensing crop-specific advice based on the weather — even for farmers with
limited literacy or internet connectivity.

By Alessio Perrone // 23 July 2024
Christina Matsenga had a problem: her goat had stopped eating. The farmer from
Ndodo, a village in Malawi’s Lilongwe district, knew a smartphone-based chatbot
could help — even if she didn’t have a smartphone herself. Matsenga turned to an
in-person farmer support agent who opened WhatsApp on her own smartphone, took
photos of the goat, and sent them to a number linked to a chatbot called
Ulangizi. Normally, Matsenga would have to travel 25 miles to the capital to her
local government agricultural extension officer. But within seconds, the chatbot
sent recommendations on how to treat the animal in Chichewa, the local language,
which the agent read aloud to Matsenga. Ulangizi, which means “advice” in
Chichewa, is an AI chatbot developed by Chicago nonprofit Opportunity
International that provides real-time answers to farmers’ queries in Malawi. It
pulls information from the Malawian government’s agricultural manual to
recommend good agricultural practices. Ulangizi is one of several examples of
how farmers in lower-income countries are using AI to improve crop yields and
assist with their livestock. “If these AI technologies are designed with an
ecosystem development approach, they can be extremely powerful,” Gladys Morales,
the global head of innovation at the International Fund for Agricultural
Development, told Devex. IFAD finances and supports this kind of innovation and
made it a central theme of its annual meeting this year. “We have seen that they
can help increase agricultural productivity threefold. Farmers’ incomes can
increase as much as five times.” AI innovations can already increase crop yields
in several different ways, Morales said. They can help farmers adopt precision
agriculture methods — strategies and tools allowing farmers to optimize the use
of resources and increase soil quality and productivity — improving efficiency.
AI can improve their management of pests and diseases, as in the case of
Ulangizi, or give them weather-related advice. Or AI could help optimize
agricultural supply chains, resource management, and data-driven
decision-making. Of course, there are challenges, too. Like Matsenga, many
farmers in lower-income countries, especially in Africa, lack access to the
technology that would enable them to tap into the solutions being developed.
Only 37% of Africans regularly used the internet in 2023, and connectivity costs
can be steep, according to the International Telecommunication Union.
Smartphones are also relatively rare in rural parts of the continent. Literacy,
too, is a problem for some farmers, as they can’t type their questions or read
the chatbot’s answers. “There are also other barriers that people talk less
about,” Morales said, such as language. “Most tech companies think they can
solve the language barrier by providing advisory services in official languages.
But often, local communities use a particular jargon, and if you don't use it,
they won't trust you or the advice you’re providing.” Devex delved into three
promising apps leveraging AI to help farmers and explored how the challenges
associated with the technology might be overcome. Detecting and diagnosing
diseases in banana crops It can be hard for farmers to distinguish between
various diseases affecting banana trees around the world. Now, there’s an app
for that. “Fungi and bacteria symptoms can look similar, leaving farmers
confused,” Michael Selvaraj, a scientist at the International Center for
Tropical Agriculture, or CIAT, told Devex. Left to their own devices, he said,
farmers will try to guess and err on the side of caution, spraying pesticides or
fungicides at the first sight of symptoms. “But that might not be the best
course of action, or it might not be necessary for certain conditions that don’t
affect a tree’s yield,” he said. “And it’s not environmentally beneficial.” To
help farmers detect and diagnose diseases in their banana trees, CIAT’s team
collected more than 50,000 images of banana plants — sick, healthy, young, and
old, from all over the world — and used them to train an AI model to classify
those diseases. It turned that data into an app called Tumaini, which has been
downloaded 15,000 times across India, Latin America, and a few countries in
Africa, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Ethiopia, and
Tanzania. Tumaini means “hope” in Swahili. The app asks users to scan the
plant’s symptoms and provide additional information or photos. Then, drawing
from published scientific literature, it gives them a diagnosis, treatment
recommendations specific to their region, as well as information about what
causes the disease. Tumaini also has an offline version available for farmers
with low connectivity. It also asks users to report the problem and aggregates
the data into a map that scientists and governments can use for risk mapping and
prevention. Weather-related advice in India By combining information held across
different databases and leveraging large language models, AI algorithms can also
provide farmers with agronomic recommendations based on the weather in their
area and its potential impact on their crops. That’s the approach of Meghdoot, a
free Android and iOS app in 13 languages whose name means “messenger from the
sky” in Hindi. It was initially developed by CGIAR’s International Crops
Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, based in Hyderabad, India, with
funding from India’s Ministry of Earth Sciences. The app has piloted the use of
large-language models and AI to provide targeted, crop-specific information at
the district level in India. It provides farmers with an easy interface to
access weather data and forecasts from the India Meteorological Department as
well as crop-specific agricultural advisories from India’s Agro-Met Field Units.
The app aggregates these advisories, as well as recorded weather and weather
forecasts, to help farmers make decisions. “After you download the app, you can
pick your district, and in some cases, a subdistrict, and see what the weather
was like in the last five days, a forecast of the next seven days, and
recommended actions for specific crops where you are,” Ram Dhulipala, a senior
scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute, another CGIAR
research center, told Devex. For example, if the weather forecast is likely very
dry, the app could advise farmers to spray fertilizer like zinc sulfate on wheat
crops. For livestock, it might recommend that animals be kept in a shed and that
the surrounding areas be cleaned to avoid housefly infestations. Dhulipala said
the app has already been downloaded by 500,000 farmers across more than 600
Indian districts, and showcased the potential of “faceless” AI — artificial
intelligence that the user might not be aware of because it’s applied to
back-office processes or to pull information from different silos. Crop advice
for Malawian farmers Across sub-Saharan Africa, smallholder farmers still only
produce 20% to 30% of their potential yields, according to Tim Strong, the head
of agriculture finance at Opportunity International. The Malawian government has
published a good agricultural practices manual and distributed it to
agricultural extension officers in the country to support farmers in their
decision-making processes. But the document is only available in English and is
700 pages long. There is one agricultural extension officer for up to 3,000
farmers, which means that it can be difficult for farmers to reach them, and it
might entail a lengthy journey into a nearby town. Opportunity International’s
Ulangizi chatbot tackles these problems by using AI to pull information from the
manual to answer farmers’ questions, in English or Chichewa. “You befriend that
number and can type, speak, or use the camera, point it at a plant, and say,
‘What's wrong with my groundnuts?’” Greg Nelson, Opportunity International’s
chief technology officer, told Devex. “And Ulangizi will tell you and give you
recommendations on how to solve it.” To solve the challenges posed by low
smartphone use and digital literacy levels in Malawi’s rural communities, the
nonprofit piloted the app by equipping 163 government extension officers and
farmer support agents with smartphones, turning them into a bridge between
farmers and the technology. Anna Chimalizeni, the farmer support agent who
helped Matsenga with her goats, said she goes into the fields several times per
week, meeting farmers and putting their questions to the app herself. Nelson
said the conversational aspect of AI innovations such as Ulangizi has the
potential to revolutionize access to information for farmers in Africa. “Many
smallholder farmers are not particularly literate or numerate,” he told Devex.
“So the ability to be conversational and to literally speak and hear can be
transformative.”

Christina Matsenga had a problem: her goat had stopped eating.

The farmer from Ndodo, a village in Malawi’s Lilongwe district, knew a
smartphone-based chatbot could help — even if she didn’t have a smartphone
herself. Matsenga turned to an in-person farmer support agent who opened
WhatsApp on her own smartphone, took photos of the goat, and sent them to a
number linked to a chatbot called Ulangizi.  

Normally, Matsenga would have to travel 25 miles to the capital to her local
government agricultural extension officer. But within seconds, the chatbot sent
recommendations on how to treat the animal in Chichewa, the local language,
which the agent read aloud to Matsenga.




THIS STORY IS FORDEVEX PROMEMBERS

Unlock this story now with a 15-day free trial of Devex Pro.

With a Devex Pro subscription you'll get access to deeper analysis and exclusive
insights from our reporters and analysts.

Start my free trialRequest a group subscription
Already a user? Sign in

More reading:

► UN agriculture fund bets big on innovation to improve food security

► How the World Food Programme is using AI

► How AI and chatbots can boost crop yields

 * Agriculture & Rural Development
 * Economic Development
 * Environment & Natural Resources
 * Innovation & ICT
 * Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR)
 * Opportunity International
 * Devex Pro Week 2024
 * Malawi
 * India

Printing articles to share with others is a breach of our terms and conditions
and copyright policy. Please use the sharing options on the left side of the
article. Devex Pro members may share up to 10 articles per month using the Pro
share tool ( ).
Should your team be reading this?
Contact us about a group subscription to Pro.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR


 * ALESSIO PERRONE
   
   Alessio Perrone is a freelance editor and reporter at Devex. Throughout his
   career, he has reported on issues at the intersection of policy, environment
   and human interest for outlets including The Guardian, Scientific American,
   TIME, and others. He’s based in Milan, Italy.


SEARCH FOR ARTICLES





RELATED JOBS

 * Individual Consultant: Sanitary and Phytosanitary Expert
   Papua New Guinea | Oceania
 * Individual Consultant: Agronomist / Seed System Expert
   Papua New Guinea | Oceania
 * Natural Resources Management Specialist
   Somalia
 * See more


MOST READ

 * 1
   Why a gender lens is needed to tackle the roots of health inequity
 * 2
   Country platforms and blended finance: a panacea for sustainable growth?
 * 3
   How global health institutions and funders can empower local researchers
 * 4
   Can direct cash transfers shift how local organizations are funded?
 * 5
   Opinion: Collaborating to drive action on early lung cancer detection


TRENDING


EVENTS


NEWSLETTERS


THIS WEEK IN GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT


LOCALIZATION





RELATED STORIES

Devex Dish

DEVEX DISH: HOW THE FARMERS WITHOUT SMARTPHONES ARE USING AI

Devex Newswire

DEVEX NEWSWIRE: AN INSIDER'S VIEW ON WHAT TRUMP VS. HARRIS MEANS FOR AID

Food systems

UN AGRICULTURE FUND BETS BIG ON INNOVATION TO IMPROVE FOOD SECURITY

Devex Dish

DEVEX DISH: CLIMATE CHANGE AND PESTS COMPOUND INDIAN FARMERS’ WOES

 * News
 * Jobs
 * Funding
 * Experts
 * Organizations




DEVEX IS THE MEDIA PLATFORM FOR THE GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY.

A social enterprise, we connect and inform over 1.3 million development, health,
humanitarian, and sustainability professionals through news, business
intelligence, and funding & career opportunities so you can do more good for
more people. We invite you to join us.

 * About Devex
 * Membership plans
 * Advertise
 * Support
 * Careers at Devex

© Copyright 2000 - 2024 Devex|User Agreement|Privacy Statement
We use cookies to help improve your user experience. By using our site, you
agree to the terms of our Privacy Policy.