The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and Wadhwani AI, the artificial intelligence unit of Lords Education and Health Society, signed a memorandum of understanding in New Delhi on 14 October to develop and evaluate AI-based advisory tools for rice farmers in India, IRRI said.
The partnership brings together IRRI's rice research and digital advisory tools, including the PaddyMitra chatbot, with Wadhwani AI's experience building agricultural AI, such as CropAce, a computer vision app that helps detect crop pests and diseases. The two organisations will assess how AI can give farmers and extension workers more timely and accurate information while keeping advice grounded in established agronomy.
The work covers four areas: aligning AI-generated advice and diagnoses with IRRI's crop management recommendations and other validated evidence; exploring adding validated pest and disease diagnosis to the PaddyMitra platform, so farmers and extension staff can use it directly; joint field trials of new applications, from image-based diagnosis to predictive models, improved with feedback from farmers; and responsible data practices.
"Our focus is on strengthening the shared framework, validated agronomic content, rigorous evaluation, and responsible data governance so that such innovations can be integrated in ways that are scientifically sound and genuinely useful to farmers," said Dr Shalini Gakhar, an IRRI data scientist. J P Mani Tripathi, director of agriculture at Wadhwani AI, said the partnership would combine AI expertise with "deep knowledge of rice production and farmer needs" to build advisory tools that can work at scale. The collaboration is part of IRRI's work under the CGIAR Digital Transformation Accelerator.
Photo: Arul Prasad / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
Source: IRRI
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