Lucknow: Digital Green’s AI-powered farming advisory assistant, FarmerChat, has crossed the milestone of one million users in India, marking a significant step in the use of artificial intelligence to deliver timely and personalised agricultural information to farmers. Launched in October 2024, the platform has now been upgraded with the launch of FarmerChat 2.0, designed to make location-specific and reliable farming advice more accessible to a larger number of farmers.
Available in five languages, FarmerChat provides information on crop management, pest and disease control, livestock care and weather conditions. The platform is designed to remain accessible even in areas with limited internet connectivity.
FarmerChat allows farmers to seek advice through voice, text or photographs, making it easier for users with limited literacy to communicate their farming problems. Farmers can, for instance, upload a picture of a diseased crop rather than having to describe the problem in writing.
The AI assistant supports farmers across different stages of cultivation, including crop planning, pest and disease management, livestock care, weather-related decisions and access to agricultural resources. Rather than simply responding to questions, the platform is designed to provide timely recommendations based on factors such as the farmer’s crop, location, weather conditions and livestock requirements.
FarmerChat uses technologies including fine-tuned language models, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), expert-validated data and reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF). Agricultural experts and veterinarians regularly review the advice generated through the platform and make corrections where necessary, helping ensure that recommendations remain accurate, reliable and relevant to local farming conditions.
The initiative builds on Digital Green’s 15-year experience of disseminating agricultural knowledge through farmer-generated videos. These videos have traditionally been screened during village meetings to provide agricultural information to millions of farmers. FarmerChat extends this model through AI, allowing farmers to access trusted information in their own language and at the time they need it.
The platform has also significantly reduced the estimated cost of delivering agricultural advisory services. While conventional approaches could cost around ₹3,300 per farmer annually, Digital Green’s video-based model brought down the cost considerably, with FarmerChat further reducing it to approximately ₹33 per farmer per year. This cost efficiency is expected to enable quality agricultural advice to reach a much larger farmer base.
So far, FarmerChat has answered more than three million questions in India, with women accounting for around 45 per cent of its users. An independent study by 60 Decibels found that around 60 per cent of active users adopted recommendations received through the app, while 91 per cent said the platform increased their confidence in making farming-related decisions.
FarmerChat 2.0 puts farmers’ feedback at the centre
The upgraded FarmerChat 2.0 has been developed using insights gathered directly from farmers. An independent IDinsight study of the first version found that 67 per cent of active users adopted advice provided through the application.
Feedback showed that farmers increasingly preferred asking questions through voice rather than typing and were particularly interested in uploading photographs of crop-related problems. Farmers who sought advice through images were also more likely to implement the recommendations, according to the organisation.
FarmerChat 2.0 therefore moves beyond simply waiting for farmers to ask questions. The upgraded platform can proactively surface relevant questions, suggestions and advisories based on a farmer’s crop, location and prevailing weather conditions.
The new version also features a simpler interface and new advisory cards. Over time, the platform builds a farmer profile based on information such as crops, location, weather and previous queries, enabling it to provide increasingly personalised recommendations.
Looking ahead, Digital Green India aims to bring 3.5 million additional farmers onto the platform by 2028. The organisation also plans to increase the participation of women farmers, encourage climate-resilient agricultural practices and contribute towards improving farm incomes.
Nidhi Bhasin, CEO, Digital Green India, said FarmerChat 2.0 has been shaped by feedback from farmers. She said interactions with millions of farmers showed a clear demand for advice tailored to their crops, local weather and preferred language, and delivered in a conversational manner.
Bhasin added that the organisation’s next step is the development of an Agricultural AI Harness, envisioned as a platform bringing together trusted services related to agricultural advisories, weather, markets and government schemes. The organisation, she said, will continue using farmer feedback and emerging technologies to make the platform more useful, accurate and reliable.
With its combination of AI, expert-validated agricultural knowledge and farmer feedback, FarmerChat represents an effort to make personalised agricultural advisory services more affordable and accessible at scale.
