WeFarm connects over 1 million farmers to grow together
Context
Over 1 billion smallholder farmers produce 70% of the world’s food, and four of the five most traded commodities on earth, yet the vast majority lack access to the internet and even basic information to help them solve problems or share ideas. Furthermore, the smallholder global agricultural market is valued at over 400 billion USD
Solution
Wefarm harnesses artificial intelligence (AI) to empower human intelligence (HI). This means all machine learning at Wefarm aims to supplement, augment, and identify the knowledge, skills, and achievements of our farmers. They are working towards connecting every smallholder farmer on earth, we’ll only get better at matching farmers with issues to farmers with the best solutions.
They are primarily trying to connect farmers who might be hundreds or thousands of miles apart and who rarely have internet access using SMS – allowing anyone with a simple mobile phone to benefit from our network. Additionally, farmers don’t need English language proficiency to use Wefarm. Farmers can ask questions in any supported language and Wefarm’s machine learning algorithms then match each question to the best-suited responder.
Impact
Wefarm is already helping users overcome barriers to communication. It understands variation in spelling and punctuation as well as nuances in dialect and literacy. It even understands typos and works out what users mean to say. The technology now gives them the flexibility to easily add further languages as they move into new markets. While most data scientists in the world are focusing on the English-speaking western world, the data scientists at Wefarm are committed to using our skills to provide non-English speaking communities in emerging markets with better solutions to their everyday problems.