Planting times, pests, livestock feed—agriculture requires a great deal of specialised knowledge! In India and Kenya, artificial intelligence is stepping in to give farmers customised advice with just one phone call. The ‘Agriculture Information Exchange Platform’ is digitising agriculture across Africa and Asia.
Smallholder farmers in India and Kenya face significant challenges: unpredictable weather, limited market access, and outdated farming techniques make it difficult to earn a stable living. In addition, access to public agricultural advisory services is scarce. Thanks to AI, however, smallholder farmers in Kenya and India are now receiving practical and reliable advice via text message, voice call or mobile app. This is made possible by a digital platform, advanced voice technology and generative artificial intelligence (AI): The ‘Agriculture Information Exchange Platform’ (AIEP) uses digital tools to provide timely, localised and easy-to-understand agricultural information.
Bridging the knowledge gap
In the Indian region of Bihar, smallholder farmer Suman Bai, is already benefiting from the platform. She can now use her phone to ask questions and receive information in her local language that is tailored to her region, crop, and situation.
Smallholder farmers use our platform to get information about problems they are facing, to upskill, to plan and help and interact with other farmers.
Vineet Singh, AIEP partner group Digital Green
The technology works via an automated phone system: farmers can ask questions about topics such as the best planting times, livestock feed, and pest control through a conversational bot. This bot can be used via messaging services such as WhatsApp or a mobile app, and farmers can interact with it using a phone keypad or by speech recognition. When Suman submits a question, an AI system directs her to other service providers who can offer the most relevant advice.
Digital advisory services like AIEP offer a cost-efficient alternative to traditional agricultural extension services, often costs by up to 90%. By integrating traditional farming knowledge with modern, AI-based insights, AIEP empowers farmers like Suman with high-quality, accessible, personalised agricultural advice.
The platform is designed with social, cultural and technical barriers in mind. Farmers with limited literacy can also benefit from its services, as information is provided in local languages. Particular attention is paid to reaching women and marginalised groups via easily accessible channels such as text message or phone calls, rather than via internet or smartphones, to which they often do not have access.
We are empowering farmers with information service, in their language, on their terms, at their convenience.
George Arthur-Sarpong, AIEP partner group Viamo
Transforming agriculture and livelihoods
Behind the easily accessible information, there is more: in Kenya, AI strategies and data protection policies ensure that users’ data is protected. The sophisticated AI system GAIA (‘Generative Artificial Intelligence for Agriculture Advisory’) processes raw agricultural data to provide customised advice to farmers. GAIA’s ability to analyse vast amounts of agricultural data ensures that farmers receive precise, evidence-based recommendations.
The AIEP platform brings together diverse partners in five groups working together on specialised agricultural solutions:
- DynAG supports rice, wheat, and maize farmers, with AI-powered advisory services via chatbots, mobile apps, IVR, and SMS—available in English and Hindi through machine translation and speech recognition.
- Digital Green provides advice for dairy, coffee, and wheat farmers in Bihar, India, and Kenya via an app, Telegram, and IVR. It includes weather data, speech recognition, and machine translation in Hindi, Swahili, Gikuyu, and Marathi.
- Viamo and Partners support bean, sweet potato, rice, and wheat farmers in Kenya and Bihar, India via SMS, WhatsApp, and speech-based IVR services with machine translation in English, Hindi, and Swahili.
- Tech for Her empowers women tomato and cattle farmers in Bihar, India, and Kenya through AI-driven services using speech-based IVR, WhatsApp, and a mobile app with chatbots and AI-generated videos in multiple languages.
- Mshauri is a WhatsApp-integrated chatbot that optimises potato cultivation in Kenya through voice and text-based user interfaces in English and Swahili.
We are creating models that can provide farming advisory to farmers, in their local dialect.
Achint Sanghi, AIEP partner group DynAg
The result: better harvests, higher yields, healthier plants and better income for farmers. Smallholder farmer Suman Bai in India now always carries the accumulated knowledge of experience and AI with her—her phone. When she calls, she gets expert advice free of charge—from the hotline to the field.
More information about AIEP.
AIEP is funded by the Gates Foundation and developed by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
