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AI Status Brazil Supportive perspective

Farm pest identification through a phone camera

Supportive Posted by Tiago Monteiro Reading time ~ 2 min

This is community opinion, not fact. Moderated before publication.

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I grow coffee on a small farm in Minas Gerais that has been in my family for four generations. Last season we had an outbreak of a pest I had never seen before, and by the time the agronomist from the cooperative could visit we had lost part of a row. This season my son set up an app that identifies pests and diseases from a phone photo. It is not perfect. It has confused two different leaf miners on us at least twice. But it gives us a first opinion in minutes, and when it flags something serious we send a photo to the agronomist and she prioritizes the visit. The difference between acting in two hours and acting in two weeks is enormous at our scale. I mention this because most of the stories I see about AI in Brazil are about big tech companies and big controversies. On small and medium farms these tools are quietly becoming a standard part of the work. I would support stronger guidance from Embrapa and the agricultural ministries on which apps to trust, because there are many and the quality varies. I would also like rural internet to be treated as the infrastructure it is, because none of this works when the connection drops. Used with judgment, and alongside human experts, these tools are a real help.
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