Subscribe

Back

Who we are

With research staff from more than 70 countries, and offices across the globe, IFPRI provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries.

researcher spotlight

Kinya Kaibung’a

Kinya Kaibung’a is a Research Officer with the Development Strategies and Governance Unit, based in Nairobi, Kenya. She has a keen interest in leveraging machine learning, AI, and other cutting-edge technologies to boost climate resilience and food security in smart agriculture systems.

Back

What we do

Since 1975, IFPRI’s research has been informing policies and development programs to improve food security, nutrition, and livelihoods around the world.

Research topics

Projects and impact

Food Security Portal

Modeling tools

What’s new

Where we work

Back

Where we work

IFPRI currently has more than 480 employees working in over 70 countries with a wide range of local, national, and international partners.

IFPRI Regional Programs

IFPRI Country and Regional Offices

Research by country and region

Subscribe

experts

Agrifood Innovation and Resilience

Eliot Jones-Garcia

Senior Research Analyst

Follow

Eliot

at:

ORCiD

Bio

Eliot Jones-Garcia is a Senior Research Analyst with the Agrifood Innovation and Resilience Unit based in Washington, DC. His research focuses on human-AI interaction, user-centered design, and the ethical and responsible development of AI.

At IFPRI, he explores the conceptual and methodological advancements of AI, the skills and governance structures needed to responsibly integrate AI into agricultural research, and the socio-technical barriers that shape its effectiveness in extension and advisory services.

Eliot is finalizing a PhD on the digitalization of agricultural advisory services at Wageningen University & Research. He holds a master’s in Rural Development and Innovation from Wageningen University and a bachelor’s in International Agriculture from the University of Greenwich.

Languages spoken: English, Functional Spanish

LinkedIn Profile

Publications

Resource thumbnail

Blog Post

Two forms of critical AI literacy and why they matter for farming communities

2026Chigozie-Okwum, Chioma; Jauhar, Ameen; Jones-Garcia, Eliot
Details

Two forms of critical AI literacy and why they matter for farming communities

Key takeaways • Co-design involving farming communities improves the reliability of AI agricultural apps , ensuring they reflect local knowledge instead of external assumptions or biases. • Critical AI literacy helps farmers question, evaluate, and shape AI tools. • Development approaches vary , requiring different types of critical AI literacy.

Year published

2026

Authors

Chigozie-Okwum, Chioma; Jauhar, Ameen; Jones-Garcia, Eliot

Citation

Chigozie-Okwum, Chioma; Jauhar, Ameen; Jones-Garcia, Eliot. 2026. Two forms of critical AI literacy and why they matter for farming communities. IFPRI Blog Post. https://www.ifpri.org/blog/two-forms-of-critical-ai-literacy-and-why-they-matter-for-farming-communities/

Keywords

Agricultural Extension; Artificial Intelligence

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Blog Post

Resource thumbnail

Conference Paper

Breaking the silence: Challenges in deploying language technologies for low-resource agricultural contexts

2026Mganga, Nelson; Jones-Garcia, Eliot
Details

Breaking the silence: Challenges in deploying language technologies for low-resource agricultural contexts

Speech interfaces are rapidly emerging as a cornerstone of digital agriculture, promising to make advisory systems more inclusive for low-literate and linguistically diverse farming communities. Yet, the technologies enabling this transformation—Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) and Natural Language Processing—remain underdeveloped for most African languages. Our study presents both a systematic review of ASR across development domains in Africa and recent progress in designing, training, and evaluating ASR models for agricultural communication. This was originally accepted as a Presentation, but later changed to be a panel discussion.

Year published

2026

Authors

Mganga, Nelson; Jones-Garcia, Eliot

Citation

Mganga, Nelson; and Jones-Garcia, Eliot. 2026. Breaking the silence: Challenges in deploying language technologies for low-resource agricultural contexts. Presented at the ICT4D Conference 2026, May 20-22, 2026 in Nairobi, Kenya. https://ict4dconference.secure-platform.com/site/gallery/rounds/82002/details/10858

Keywords

Machine Learning; Natural Language Processing; Digital Agriculture; Food Systems

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Record type

Conference Paper

Resource thumbnail

Journal Article

Asking the right question: Toward a research agenda for responsible GAI in agricultural extension

2026Jones-Garcia, Eliot; Singaraju, Niyati; Davis, Kristin E.; Koo, Jawoo
Details

Asking the right question: Toward a research agenda for responsible GAI in agricultural extension

This study explores how generative AI (GAI) tools for agricultural extension can be designed and evaluated more responsibly. While current GAI systems offer scalable, personalized advice, they often ignore the lived realities of smallholder farmers—especially women—by relying on generic datasets and rigid evaluation metrics. We investigate three complementary methods: adversarial testing to expose gendered and contextual blind spots in model outputs; deliberative stakeholder engagement using the C-H-A-T framework, which focused on Collective knowledge, Human insight, Augmentation, and Trust, to surface value tensions and design trade-offs; and field-level insights from extension officers to uncover trust-building, diagnostic reasoning, and social intelligence absent from static GAI interactions. Together, these approaches reveal that responsible GAI requires more than technical accuracy. It demands participatory design processes that foreground user realities, surface stakeholder assumptions, and account for social and institutional context. We recommend developing gender-responsive benchmarks, embedding reflexive, participatory design methods, and modeling advisory reasoning based on real-world extension practice. The findings contribute to a growing agenda for responsible AI development—highlighting the importance of aligning GAI tools not only with technical goals, but with the social, cultural, and political contexts in which they operate.

Year published

2026

Authors

Jones-Garcia, Eliot; Singaraju, Niyati; Davis, Kristin E.; Koo, Jawoo

Citation

Jones-Garcia, Eliot; Singaraju, Niyati; Davis, Kristin E.; and Koo, Jawoo. 2026. Asking the right question: Toward a research agenda for responsible GAI in agricultural extension. Advancements in Agricultural Development 7(2): 35-49. https://doi.org/10.37433/aad.v7i2.633

Keywords

Gender; Women Farmers; Smallholders; Artificial Intelligence; Agricultural Extension; Evaluation

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.37433/aad.v7i2.633 Source record

Record type

Journal Article

Blogs

Two forms of critical AI literacy and why they matter for farming communities
Issue Post
 | 
May 29, 2026

Two forms of critical AI literacy and why they matter for farming communities

By Chioma Chigozie-Okwum, Ameen Jauhar, and Eliot Jones-Garcia

Contributing to app development requires an understanding of AI.

Co-designing AI agents for agricultural policy
Event Post
 | 
March 04, 2026

Co-designing AI agents for agricultural policy

By Kristin Davis, Eliot Jones-Garcia, Hlamalani Ngwenya, Arielle Rosenthal, Amanda Grossi, and Mia Speier

Generating insights for a rapidly-changing world.

Asking the right questions: A stakeholder dialogue on generative AI in digital extension
Research Post
 | 
October 07, 2025

Asking the right questions: A stakeholder dialogue on generative AI in digital extension

By Eliot Jones-Garcia, Kristin Davis, and Niyati Singaraju

Balancing new technology with local needs.

View all Blogs

Events

AI Policy Considerations for Food, Land, and Water Systems
IFPRI Policy Seminar

 | 

September 15, 2026, 9:30 – 11:00 am

AI Policy Considerations for Food, Land, and Water Systems

Please type your questions into the chat box with name, affiliation, and country. The event video, presenter slides, and podcast will be available in the days following the event. Amid rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI), there is growing interest in using AI as a tool to advance food systems transformation. AI has significant potential […]

African Food Systems Forum (AFSF) 2026
IFPRI at External Event

 | 

August 31 to September 4, 2026

African Food Systems Forum (AFSF) 2026

The Africa Food Systems Forum (AFSF) will host its 20th Annual Summit in Kigali, Rwanda from 31 August to 4 September 2026, under the theme “Investing in Africa’s Agri-Food Systems: Nourishing Nations, Growing Jobs, Building Resilience.” The Summit will bring together stakeholders from across the agri-food sector for a programme of plenary sessions, technical discussions, […]

AI Workflows for Food Systems Research: A Demonstration of AutoDiscovery with the Ai2 Asta Team
IFPRI Program/Country Event

 | 

June 4, 2026, 9:30 – 10:30 am

AI Workflows for Food Systems Research: A Demonstration of AutoDiscovery with the Ai2 Asta Team

As the volume of scientific literature and data in food, land, and water systems continues to grow, researchers face increasing challenges in identifying relevant evidence, synthesizing insights, and translating them into actionable research questions. New AI tools are emerging to support this process—but what does this look like in practice? This webinar features the Asta […]

View all Events

News

June 11, 2026 | Press Release

IFPRI and AFAAS partner across four countries to test AI tools for farmer advisory services

The partners will convene national stakeholders to identify priority use cases and co-design approaches for testing AI-enabled advisory tools.

October 06, 2025 | In the News

Agriculture Ministry and LIFAAS host generative AI workshop to strengthen extension services (Ministry of Agriculture, Liberia)

With support from IFPRI, the workshop brought together diverse stakeholders to explore how generative AI can close extension gaps and enhance the reach and impact of agricultural advisory services in Liberia.