The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), with support from the CGIAR Accelerator on Digital Transformation, and Farm Radio International (FRI) have partnered to develop Longa—an artificial intelligence (AI) powered speech recognition tool designed to strengthen agricultural communication and inclusivity across sub-Saharan Africa.
The collaboration seeks to harness advances in AI and natural language processing (NLP) to make agricultural extension more responsive, participatory, and representative of farmers’ diverse voices and contributions. FRI, which operates interactive radio projects in 12 African countries, receives thousands of voice messages from farmers each week—with valuable insights that often remain unanalyzed due to language and resource barriers. Through Longa (meaning “Let’s chat” in Swahili), these conversations can now be automatically transcribed, translated, and analyzed, transforming them into actionable data for improving timeliness and richness of agricultural advice, ultimately benefiting Africa’s agri-food systems and food security.
Developed jointly by IFPRI researchers and FRI’s Digital Innovation team, Longa represents one of the first end-to-end speech recognition systems for Luganda, a language primarily spoken in Uganda, and Bambara, primarily spoken in Mali. The project has already achieved a 10 percent improvement over existing speech recognition models for Luganda radio speech, demonstrating that fine-tuning multilingual AI models can significantly enhance performance in low-resource languages.
Jawoo Koo, Senior Research Fellow, IFPRI: “Our partnership with Farm Radio International exemplifies inclusive digital innovation in practice. Farm Radio’s network of over 1,000 radio partners across Africa, reaching more than 100 million potential listeners, provides a great opportunity to deliver timely agricultural advisories at scale. We are co-developing AI solutions that make Farm Radio’s programs even more interactive and effective, and specifically want to elevate insights from and support to farmers conversant in so-called low-resource languages that are often underserved by existing technologies. What excites us most about this collaboration is that it enables us not only to share knowledge with millions of farmers, but also to listen to and learn from them in their own languages. This two-way dialogue is accelerating the adoption of farming practices that are both more resilient and farmer-centered.”
Ian Pringle, Executive Director, Farm Radio International: “Using Longa, policymakers, civil society and the private sector leaders can all tap into the realities of tens of thousands of farmers as expressed in their own language. It’s a huge contribution to better policy, more effective programs, more accessible markets and better dialogue. The potential for Longa is of course much larger with many African languages remaining underserved. We believe that innovation is only as good as people’s ability to access it. Using AI to bridge the ever-widening access divide builds upon our history of accessible innovation. Collaboration with organizations like IFPRI make these advancements possible.”
The initiative builds on the shared design principles developed by IFPRI and Farm Radio International: collaboration, user-centered design, longevity, data-driven development, flexibility, gender inclusion, and open-access innovation. The next steps will focus on integrating Longa into FRI’s existing Uliza Interactive platform, used by 203 radio stations across Africa in 2025, to enable large-scale analysis of farmer feedback and strengthen participatory program design. Building on this momentum, IFPRI and FRI plan to extend the approach across FRI’s diverse language networks, adapting the tool to new linguistic contexts to ensure that farmers’ voices are understood and acted upon in their own languages. By sharing these models on platforms such as Hugging Face, IFPRI and FRI aim to make them available as global public goods—to ensure that the benefits of this innovation extend beyond the project itself, advancing the growing movement toward open, voice-to-voice computing for development.
Farm Radio International (FRI) is a Canadian non-profit organization that works with a network of more than 1,400 radio stations across 38 countries in Africa to share knowledge and amplify farmers’ voices. Currently operating projects in 12 countries, FRI supports interactive, listener-driven radio programs that make agricultural and climate information accessible and relevant, particularly for women and youth. https://farmradio.org
The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in low- and middle income countries. Established in 1975, IFPRI is a research center of CGIAR, a global partnership for a food-secure future. https://www.ifpri.org
CGIAR Accelerator on Digital Transformation co-creates digital solutions with CGIAR Science Programs and Accelerators to amplify their impact by leveraging data assets, applying AI-powered analytics, and enabling strategic partnerships. https://on.cgiar.org/digital
Media Contacts:
Ian Pringle
Executive Director
Farm Radio International
ipringle@farmradio.org
+1-613-761-3724
Evgeniya Anisimova
Media & Digital Engagement Manager
International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
e.anisimova@cgiar.org
+1-202-862-5600