01-07-2025
This student is building an AI app to help farmers address crop issues
Immersing himself in the life of farmers, and listening to the stories of his uncle in the province led Ateneo de Manila University student Soj Gamayon to build an AI app that could help farmers detect issues in their crops and address the problem.
"Iba pa pala 'yung hirap ng you're already putting in so much time and effort tas 'di mo pa mapapabalik 'yung ani mo because of conditions you can't control or you didn't control fast enough," the communications Technology management major told GMA News Online in an interview.
Armed with his student exchange program experience at the National University of Singapore and an internship at a Vietnam startup company catering farmers, Gayamon was more than up to look for solutions.
"Merging that experience from Singapore and then that personal story once I got back home, that kind of inspired the story of AgriConnect. And what it does really is helping these agribusinesses manage these risks," he added.
Called the AgriConnect PH, the AI app helps farmers become more strategic "so that no harvest is left to chance," he said.
"It's a lot of trying to be more strategic with farming versus just guessing and just relying on intuition, especially since these conditions now in the world are very much unpredictable. You don't know when it's going to rain. You don't know when El Nino heat hits you. So a lot of these things," the student said.
The AgriConnect PH AI app works in three segments: collecting the data, interpreting on the data, and acting on the data.
A "more sensitive and smarter" type of sensor will be put around the corners of the land looking into three risks: water levels, moisture, pests and insects.
The data is then sent into a cloud, where data is stored, which is then sent to the app with AI interpreting the data collected.
Farmers will have three signals: Green means normal, yellow means moderate which tells you what to focus on, and red means there are serious risks, giving instructions how to handle the situation.
The app can give updates on the crops at least twice a day on an "as-needed basis" depending on the time set by the farmers.
"But obviously, if there's really an immediate risk, then that would have a separate notification for farmers to act on," he said.
As of writing, the AgriConnect PH app can accommodate cereal crops such as rice, corn, among others. They are planning to scale higher on high-value crops like vegetables and livestocks.
Through the app, Gamayon hopes to streamline the process of farming so farmers can grow more crops with no money going to waste.
"Sometimes these farms have different scales, and sometimes masyado nang marami [yung problema] and the farmer can't act on it fast enough," the student said.
"We're trying to make our farmers more proactive rather than reactive to the risks that are within the farm," he added.
While they are still in the process of developing the technology by talking to stakeholders and institutions, Gamayon hopes people will embrace technology use in agriculture, stressing the industry's importance to society.
"It's high time that we embrace the idea of technology. And that technology just goes beyond the tractor. Data exists now as a way for us to elevate farming. ... and the fact that we're actually having more technological advancements, we can produce more efficiently," he said.
"If technology bridges that gap for agriculture —at least man lang there's a fighting chance to elevate agriculture in the Philippines. I hope the word gets out there for farmers to also see that there's a future through technology with agriculture." — LA, GMA Integrated News
