The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and Digital Green are deepening their long-standing partnership to explore how artificial intelligence (AI) can strengthen agricultural extension and advisory services for smallholder farmers. Building on years of joint research on digital extension, the collaboration will now focus on user testing of Digital Green’s FarmerChat application as part of IFPRI’s Generative AI for Agriculture (GAIA) initiative.
FarmerChat is an AI-powered assistant developed by Digital Green that provides farmers with free, localized, and climate-smart agricultural advice in their own languages, using text, video, voice, and images. The tool is designed to expand farmers’ access to timely and trusted information on crop management, markets, and climate resilience.
Under the GAIA project, IFPRI and its partners — including Digital Green, CABI, the University of Florida, and SCiO — are examining how generative AI can improve the accuracy, relevance, and inclusivity of digital agricultural advisories. Phase I of GAIA tested new AI tools for agricultural advisory services in India and Kenya, exploring how generative AI can make digital advice more accurate, inclusive, and relevant for farmers. The work also examined challenges such as data quality, gender balance, and trust in AI systems. Phase II (2025–2027) builds on these lessons to refine FarmerChat and other tools, focusing on usability, trust, and inclusion—especially of women and youth—and ensuring that AI reflects how farmers and extension agents interact in real-world settings.
“IFPRI explores AI applications across food systems—from farm-level decision support to policy analysis. Partnering with Digital Green, we apply human-centered, participatory design to ensure that AI-enabled digital advisory services truly meet farmers’ needs for timely, practical advice,” said Jawoo Koo, Senior Research Fellow, IFPRI.
“FarmerChat is reimagining how farmers access trusted, localized knowledge, at a fraction of traditional costs. Through our collaboration with IFPRI, we’re grounding AI innovation in real farmer feedback to ensure tools like FarmerChat are accurate, inclusive, and truly strengthen resilience across food systems,” added Rikin Gandhi, CEO and Co-Founder, Digital Green.
The new phase of work combines IFPRI’s long-standing body of work on agricultural extension, experiential learning, gender, and social inclusion with Digital Green’s technology and field presence, offering insights for policymakers, practitioners, and innovators in agricultural development. Together, the partners aim to ensure that emerging AI tools are effective, inclusive, and responsive to farmers’ voices.
Digital Green is a global development organization that empowers smallholder farmers to lift themselves out of poverty by harnessing the power of technology and grassroots partnerships. Its FarmerChat app connects farmers to relevant, localized advisory content using AI and natural language technologies. https://digitalgreen.org
The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition. IFPRI’s strategic research aims to identify and analyze alternative international and country-led strategies and policies for meeting food and nutrition needs in low- and middle-income countries, with particular emphasis on poor and vulnerable groups in those countries, inclusive development, and sustainability. It is a research center of CGIAR, a worldwide partnership engaged in agricultural research for development. www.ifpri.org
Media inquiries:
IFPRI: Evgeniya Anisimova, e.anisimova@cgiar.org, +1 (202) 627 4394
Digital Green: Eric Firnhaber, erc@digitalgreen.org, +1 (540) 246 4384