Pests and plant diseases destroy millions of dollars' worth of crops across Africa every year, often before farmers even realize there is a problem.
A Ghanaian startup, KaraAgro AI, is using drones and artificial intelligence to detect the earliest signs of crop disease and pest infestations, giving farmers more time to respond and potentially save their harvests.
"With our KaraAgro AI system, we can pinpoint from a leave where the diseases and pests are starting," its founder, Darlington Akogo, says. "That could give you one month head start, compared to traditional ways of trying to manually go through their farms and inspect," he further adds.
The system deploys drones to capture thousands of high-resolution images across farmland.
Those images are then analyzed by artificial intelligence to identify early signs of pests, disease and crop stress, enabling farmers to target only affected areas before damage spreads.
Agricultural experts say AI-powered technologies have the potential to transform farming by enabling growers to make faster and more informed decisions.
However, they warn that unless such innovations become affordable and widely accessible, many smallholder farmers could miss out on their benefits.
"Those who are generally scared of new technologies, those that are a bit skeptical about this technology—probably there's a traditional mentality that this might affect their crop negatively— they are the ones that might be left behind," according to agricultural expert Osman Tanko.
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, up to 40 percent of global crop production is lost each year to pests and plant diseases.
For yam farmer Abdullai Abubakar, those losses are a familiar reality. While he believes technologies like KaraAgro AI could help improve yields, he remains concerned about the cost of adopting them.
KaraAgro AI says it is training agricultural extension officers across Ghana to bring the technology closer to farming communities, with the goal of making precision agriculture accessible, not only to large commercial farms, but also to smallholder farmers.
