Farmer.Chat helps farmers in Asia and Africa - Digital Green

Your Farmer.Chat app uses artificial intelligence to assist smallholders in underdeveloped agrarian regions. Could you explain how the app works?

‘If a farmer is experiencing a problem, he can take a photo of it and ask a question in his own local language. For example: “Oh, I see there are insects on my crop, what can I do about that?” The AI system presents potential solutions and it can also show one of the thousands of videos we have in our knowledge bank. The video could well have been made by another farmer experiencing problems with the same type of insect, and who knows exactly how to remedy the situation.’

Amazing! So AI isn’t just a threat to working people, it can also build bridges.

‘In Ethiopia, as in India, people speak many different languages. It’s very difficult for these farmers to find solutions to their problems using Google, because they usually have limited literacy and not much knowledge of English. By installing our app on their Android phone, they are immediately able to ask questions in their own language, and to upload photos of the problem on their farm.’

Is Farmer.Chat popular?

‘Currently, some 250,000 farmers use the app. On average, each farmer consults the app 18 times a month. We have collaborated with over two and a half million farmers, and produced over 10,000 videos in forty languages. By now we operate in five countries in Asia and Africa. Users are farmers with smallholdings, who mostly grow a mix of crops. Some of them have a few livestock animals. They face numerous challenges every day, and climate change is making things even tougher.’

Is climate change having a major impact on their livelihoods?

‘Absolutely. Temperatures are rising and nutrients in the soil are becoming depleted. Most of the questions we receive on Farmer.Chat are about pests and blights which are becoming increasingly serious due to changing climate patterns. If these threats are not tackled, they will not only affect individual farmers, but also endanger the entire food system.’

Digital Green’s mission is: ‘to co-create a world where farmers use technology and data to build prosperous communities’. Where did that idea originate?

‘It all started in 2006. I was twenty-three and I had just graduated in computer sciences and aerospace engineering at MIT. Plus I’d just got my pilot’s licence. As a child, I dreamed of becoming an astronaut, but when I applied at NASA, it transpired I needed an eye operation, so I had to park that ambition for two years.’

So your dream fell apart?

‘Not really, I took a job at Oracle developing linguistic search algorithms. I visited friends in Mumbai, who were setting up a biodiesel company. My parents are from India, and I was given the opportunity to work there for Microsoft’s Research Technology for Emerging Markets. They were exploring the potential uses of technology in developing regions. This was before e-commerce, before fintech and before mobiles. I found it so interesting that I gave up on my application at NASA. I was also able to apply my technical knowledge here really well.’

What was it that appealed to you?

‘It was completely new for me. I didn’t even speak the language. I visited Indian village communities with the Green Foundation NGO and observed how they established relationships with farmers. I thought it was cool that some farmers were innovating. Three quarters of India’s 260 million farmers are women. They work the land, while their husbands and sons leave to find work in the cities. Although since Covid, the number of jobs available has dropped, so there is a trend for one child to remain on the farm. When I first visited, twenty years ago, I met a widow who had developed a kind of bio-manure, which was a mixture of organic raw materials. She discovered the manure dramatically increased her productivity, despite limited rainfall.

I thought other farmers should know about this too. Using a clunky camcorder, I videoed this farmer, and we showed the video using a video recorder and a TV in surrounding villages. This idea of enabling farmers to share their agricultural knowledge, became the inspiration for setting up Digital Green in 2008 and making it independent of Microsoft.’

By now you are the head of a rapidly expanding international organisation. Do you have time for a private life, too?

‘Haha, I have a wife and two kids, one seven and one nine. We live in the US, just north of Silicon Valley. But I do travel a lot. In a few hours I’ll be heading out to Vietnam. Who knows, maybe we can contribute there, too.’

Digital Green

Where? India, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, and Brazil.
What? The organisation supports smallholder farmers who often lack access to reliable agricultural advice. Their solution is Farmer.Chat: a free, AI-powered platform that gives real-time, climate-smart guidance through text, voice and images, in local languages.
Why? Without access to good advice, most of those farmers miss out on opportunities to improve their harvests, increase income, and build resilience against climate change.
Results? Since its founding, Digital Green has reached 8.4 million farmers, with each interaction costing just €0.012. At scale, impact is achieved for just €0.04 per farmer action—nearly 100 times cheaper than traditional, in-person guidance. And it works: 80% of users take action based on the advice. Every euro donated enables around 25 tailored farming recommendations to smallholder farms.

Website: https://digitalgreen.org/