The AI Revolution Comes for Farmers Growing a Third of Our Food

Opportunity International, the Krach Institute’s partner in the Trusted Tech Microfinance Initiative, is rolling out a test of its Artificial Intelligence-powered local language app to aid subsistence farmers in some of the poorest parts of the world. Opportunity International is piloting one version of the app in Malawi. In that country, the app is called Ulangizi — which translates as “Advice.” The app works on WhatsApp and uses data from ChatGPT along with the Malawian government’s English-language agricultural manual to answer questions or diagnose crop and farm animal diseases.

In the village of Ndodo, 25 miles south of the Malawian capital Lilongwe, farmers gather in the shade of an acacia tree as a voice over a smartphone tells them how to get rid of a weevil that’s destroying their sweet potato crops. The tips offered by the app in the local language Chichewa is one of the first examples of how Artificial Intelligence is being used to aid subsistence farmers in some of the poorest parts of the world.

Read the full story as reported by Bloomberg