Smartphone App Helps Farmers Predict Climate Change And Save Their Crops From Destruction
That also automatically means crops farmers are growing will suffer and could result in a food shortage. So some researchers are tackling that with AI.
A team from Penn State University have modified a smartphone app called PlantVillage to help farmers tackle climate change. The app is currently used in Africa to help farmers diagnose crop diseases. The researchers studied the app and found it to be twice as accurate as humans, helping farmers make informed decisions about their crops.
What they then did was introduce a custom AI into the app, called Nuru. It integrates tens of thousands of data points across Africa, with hundreds more being collected everyday, including official climate monitoring services like the UN's WaPOR portal, which draws from 10 years of NASA satellite observations.
The app can then give farmers advice to protect their crops from the consequences of climate change. This could be tips on flood mitigation, soil conservation, or even which crops would be the most viable in their soil and climate conditions.