What is it about?
In this paper, we identify research areas that will help AI practitioners build and design ML systems that incorporate farmers' needs, practices, value systems, and daily agricultural ecosystem realities. We also discuss tensions that may arise when introducing AI to smallholder farmers in the Global South
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Why is it important?
Smallholder farmers make up 95% of the world's farmers and produce 45% of the world's food, 70% of which comes from sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia. Our paper describes real-world, on-the-ground efforts by the authors - a team of industry and academic researchers - to meaningfully engage with smallholder farmers and the potential of AI.
Perspectives
I hope this article begins to shed some light on the complexity and challenges of introducing AI to smallholder farmers in the Global South. AI is not a silver bullet, but if we can introduce it responsibly and in ways that align with farmers' needs and value systems, we can take one step closer to addressing food insecurity and poverty in ways that are transformational.
Courtney Heldreth
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: What does AI mean for smallholder farmers?, interactions, July 2021, ACM (Association for Computing Machinery),
DOI: 10.1145/3468004.
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