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LITTLE ROCK, AR, Oct. 28, 2024 – Global development organization Heifer International and FruitPunch AI, the global community educating and applying Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Good, in collaboration with the Microsoft Employee Giving Campaign (India), today launched the AI for Indian Farmers Challenge — a project to develop AI tools to help rural women farmers in India leverage their data for its economic value.
The project aims to help women-run farmer producer organizations (FPOs) extract and translate their own data on financial, business and other activities, which the FPO members can then use to improve their access to markets, financing and advisory services.
The AI for Indian Farmers Challenge will use FruitPunch AI’s trailblazing method of recruiting highly skilled volunteers from the AI for Good community to solve a specific problem in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals over the course of a focused 10-week technical collaboration.
In Heifer International’s decades-long work supporting women smallholders in India, a key vehicle for economic and social empowerment is the organization of FPOs, which provide technical, production and financial services to their member farmers. However, a digital divide prevents FPOs from easily benefiting from their own data: most information, such as sales, loan and production records, is stored in paper records, out of reach of the digital ecosystem.
“This AI challenge is a game changer for women farmers and Farmer Producer Organizations across rural India. By digitizing the data that has long been captured manually, we are transforming vast amounts of untapped information into valuable insights," said Rina Soni, Executive Director of Passing Gifts Private Limited, a subsidiary of Heifer International. "This will allow farmers to make more informed decisions, improve their access to markets, and strengthen their financial resilience. At Passing Gifts, we believe that harnessing the power of data is key to unlocking the full potential of our work, and through this partnership with FruitPunch AI and Microsoft, we are laying the foundation for a future where women farmers are at the forefront of innovation and economic progress."
The Challenge will use Vision Language Models (VLMs) to extract, digitize and translate Hindi handwritten and typeset text, in Devanagari script, from photos and scans of existing paper records. Bridging the digital divide by enabling FPOs and farmers to leverage their own data will have distinct economic benefits. For example, digitized records of repaid loans can demonstrate to financial institutions that farmers are lower-risk borrowers who should get a lower interest rate on a loan. Similarly, digitized livestock or agriculture production records can be used to analyze supply trends and forecast consistent production volumes, an important requirement for buyers.
This initiative builds on existing AI efforts from Heifer and FruitPunch AI, such as the AI for Women Farmers Challenge. In that project, AI for Good volunteers, mentored by FruitPunch AI, used Optical Character Recognition (OCR) AI models to detect, recognize and translate Nepali text from handwritten and typed Devanagari script in photos. That Challenge achieved high accuracy in translating and structuring Nepali text, and will serve as a research foundation for the present effort.
“The fact that OCR, or the translation of handwritten script to digital documents, is still too inaccurate to use for Devanagari script, while it's long solved for Latin script, is widening the gap between rich western countries and developing nations. We must give Indian farmers the same advantages as Western entrepreneurs have had for the last 30 years,” said Buster Franken, Founder and CEO of FruitPunch AI.
The AI for Indian Farmers Challenge will fine-tune and improve existing VLMs in detecting, understanding and translating typeset and handwritten Devanagari script, using multiple datasets. AI volunteers involved in the Challenge will build on their existing programming, data and AI skills, while being mentored by experts to become a certified AI for Good Engineer. At the same time, they will deliver immediate impact to women smallholders in India by helping them receive value from their own data.
Passing Gifts, a subsidiary of Heifer International, offers a diverse range of services to individuals and organizations through consulting, training, and technical assistance in India and beyond. The organization develops sustainable, scalable solutions that enhance livelihoods, increase incomes, and foster self-reliance in rural communities, excelling in project design, management, research, and strategic consultancy. With a proven track record of reaching over 136,000 households across Bihar, Odisha, and Andhra Pradesh, Passing Gifts focuses on building robust agricultural and livestock value chains, particularly in goat farming and backyard poultry. Through strategic partnerships with key stakeholders, the organization delivers impactful solutions that drive lasting social, environmental, and economic change, with a strong emphasis on forming women’s self-help groups and Farmer Producer Organizations.
About Heifer International
Since 1944, Heifer International has worked with more than 46 million people around the world to end hunger and poverty in a sustainable way while caring for the Earth. Heifer currently operates in 19 countries across Africa, Asia, and the Americas, including the United States, supporting farmers and food producers to strengthen local economies and build secure livelihoods that provide a living income. For more information, visit https://www.heifer.org.
About FruitPunch AI
As the global AI for Good community, FruitPunch AI collaborates with partners worldwide with SDG-related problems that can be solved with AI. They onboard engineers from companies that need to learn about the practical use of AI and combine these with experts from their community into a 30 to 50 people force for Good. In a 10-week AI for Good Challenge, they will both tackle the problem with AI and educate participants to become certified AI for Good engineers. Join the movement at https://fruitpunch.ai.
Media Contact:
Leocadio Salmeron, Public Relations Manager, leocadio.salmeron@heifer.org / +1 404 398 8858
