Agriculture meets technology. /PHOTO; AI
The Gates Foundation and Google have expanded an initiative to bring artificial intelligence tools to 200 million smallholder farmers across Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, aiming to help farmers respond to climate risks, improve productivity and strengthen food security.
Smallholder farmers produce nearly 35 percent of the world’s food across more than 500 million farms, most measuring less than two hectares.
However, many farmers have limited access to reliable weather information, satellite data, financial services and public support, leaving them vulnerable to increasingly unpredictable weather.
The multi-year initiative will scale AI applications from an initial target of 50 million farmers. The two organisations have committed more than $100 million in combined funding and dedicated technical support from Google researchers to support organisations developing and deploying the tools.
“People deserve access to the weather, crop, and soil information that can mean the difference between a good harvest and a failed one,” said Mark Suzman, CEO of the Gates Foundation.
One area of the initiative will focus on improving local climate forecasts. Advanced AI forecasting will be integrated into TomorrowNow, a climate platform supported by the Gates Foundation, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and Google.org, to provide more practical, farm-level weather information.
The partnership will also use AI and satellite imagery to identify smallholder farms and monitor crops. Through Google’s Agricultural Understanding Platform, the initiative aims to map field boundaries and crop types, potentially helping farmers access government programmes, insurance and subsidised agricultural inputs.
The Agricultural Land Use data layer currently covers India, Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia, with deployments underway in Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, Rwanda, Zambia and Nigeria.
The initiative will also support agricultural research, including work with CGIAR on crop varieties that can withstand drought, heat and disease.
In addition, partners will develop open-source speech and text datasets covering more than 40 African languages, enabling agricultural information to reach farmers in languages they use.
