Tech Help for Food Insecurity

DAVID HUGHES FOUNDER, PLANTVILLAGE

Penn State entomologist David Hughes originally started Plantvillage as a side hustle to his main work researching ant fungus (his early Twitter handle: “@ Zombieantguy”). But the initiative, which leverages AI, mobile phones, drones, satellites and nanotechnology to help small farmers combat plant diseases that threaten their crops, has since become his main gig—and passion. The greater goal: to help end global food insecurity, which has 41 million people on the brink of famine, according to the World Food Program.

Among Plantvillage’s innovations: a U.n.-backed app Nuru (Swahili for light) that uses AI to help farmers, mostly in Africa, diagnose, treat and track plant diseases. Last year, when historic swarms of locusts posed a major risk to crops in Kenya, Ethiopia and other countries, Hughes’ team quickly created another app, elocust3m, to track and forecast the insects’ movement, helping save food for 40 million people. According to users, Hughes says, the two apps together have increased farm profits by 160 to 500 percent.

Even bigger initiatives lie ahead. At the COP26 climate conference last month, the U.S. Agency for International Development awarded $39 million to establish the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Current and Emerging Threats to Crops at Penn State—to be led by Hughes and powered by Plantvillage.