Google and Gates Foundation direct $100 million to AI tools for 200 million farmers

Google and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced a partnership to expand access to AI resources for smallholder farmers across Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

The partners will direct $100 million to organizations scaling tools for climate and crop insights. The initiative aims to reach 200 million smallholder farmers, up from a previous target of 50 million.

The funding will be paired with technical support from Google researchers. The partners said this will help deploy real-time tools using climate, agricultural and language AI.

Data for farming decisions

Smallholder farmers produce nearly 35% of the world’s food across more than 500 million farms. They often lack access to satellite data, financial services and public support that could help them prepare for and respond to increasingly unpredictable weather.

Google said the partnership is intended to help bridge that gap. The source does not specify the recipient organizations, funding-distribution timetable or the individual products to be launched.