Artificial Intelligence and Global Challenges — Zero Hunger
Goal nº 2. “Zero Hunger: End hunger and promote a sustainable agriculture.”
How Artificial Intelligence technologies can play a central role in the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals one by one.
The Sustainable Development Goals are at the heart of the 2030 Agenda. Towards a sustainable development idea, the agenda negotiations culminated in an ambitious document proposing 17 goals and 169 corresponding targets to be reached in 12 years from now. After the first article of this series exploring the physiognomies of poverty and the potential course of actions through an AI perspective, we move to the next SDG in an effort to explore the AI capability to help end hunger, achieve food security, improve nutrition and promote a sustainable agriculture.
“Technology and artificial intelligence can help us take a big leap in ending poverty, hunger, ensuring better health, fighting corruption and ensuring gender equality,” — Sophia, 2018
Only three years ago, leaders around the world considered the eradication of hunger and all forms of malnutrition (SDG 2) as a key measure for a safer, more just and peaceful world. Paradoxically, hunger has not stopped growing ever since. According to the latest estimates, the number of undernourished people increased for the third consecutive year. By 2017, 821 million people suffered from hunger (11 percent of the world’s population — one in nine people on the planet). The face of this data is composed mostly by family farmers living in poor rural areas in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia.
Extreme hunger and undernourishment are still obstacles to a sustainable development. It creates a snare that triggers less productivity, diseases and perpetuates poverty. However, other forms of malnutrition are also increasing. While more than 800 million people are extremely poor and chronically undernourished, another 1.9 billion are overweight and 600 million of those are obese. Obesity is everywhere and continues to grow around the world. Hunger, however, is limited to specific areas, especially those affected by conflict, drought and extreme poverty.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be very effective in forecasting food shortages as an active participant in a front line plan to end hunger, achieve food security, improve nutrition and promote a sustainable agriculture. Building political will for decision makers to use early warning systems is crucial to prevent a food crisis from happening. In what comes to the livelihood of people involved in agriculture, timely information in the right format and through the right channels builds resilience and boosts development.
When AI technology is developed through a decentralized governance and controlled in a transparent, participatory and compassionate manner, the power of data can be used more efficiently to analyze scenarios, anticipate risk solutions and act before hunger continues as a humanitarian crisis.
Hunger
In 2017, UNICEF stated that 1.4 million children from four different African countries (Nigeria, Somalia, Yemen and South Sudan) were at imminent risk of starvation. Notwithstanding, a study published by FAO in 2016 showed that the world food production is enough to supply the 7.3 billion people living on Earth. With 821 million people suffering from hunger around the world and children still dying of starvation, the math does not check. World food production far exceeds its demand but is largely wasted. According to FAO, around 1.3 billion tons of food is not consumed, this is one-third of all of the food produced annually. Only 25% of what is wasted would be sufficient to supply the entire hungry population.
In this context, instead of increase production and momentary aid, a territorial approach now emerges as a way to valorize and potentialize local production. Artificial Intelligence in this aspect has the power to combine new technologies into structural, specific and local policies to reduce economic inequality and guarantee that people will have food. AI can provide several scenarios and solutions, designed in different ways for different environments and populations. In fact, this is the goal of an association of technological giant Microsoft, Amazon and Google with international organizations such as the United Nations and the World Bank, known by the acronym of FAM.
Famine Action Mechanism (FAM) idea is to use the data collected by companies to analyze and try to anticipate risk situations to fight the lack of food in places such as northeaster Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen. It is dedicated to prevent future famines and trigger funding programs for a quick response by providing the first warning signs to identify food crises that could turn into hunger. Sounds familiar? In article number one of this series it was mentioned in a recent study by a team at Stanford University that uses satellite images to map poverty. Predicting when and where is a great use of artificial intelligence power in most of the global challenges we face.
According to United Nations World Food Project, it takes 50 cents to feed one hungry child for a one full day, and that is the idea behind ShareTheMeal. Available for IOS and Android, the app provides the redirection of funds to buy meals for those in need. It also shows a map distribution and its progress. The entity states that if everyone engages, the situation can radically change since the current proportion is 20 smartphones being used for each starving child in the world. For those who want to engage in the fight against hunger using the power of technology, there is also Charity Miles that stimulates not only charity but also healthy practices. The application tracks the distance the user walks or runs and donates 25 cents per mile to the causes they choose.
Another project entitled “Emergency Food Best Practice: The Digital Experience”, in a partnership between Bread & Life and IBM plans to use best practices for distributing food in emergencies, sharing them with nonprofit organizations through an interactive digital tool. Artificial intelligence can analyze large amounts of data to locate areas affected by hunger, it can provide a more efficient distribution of food and it can empower old technologies and help in the engagement of people through a smartphone. To end hunger and achieve food security, a decentralized environment can promote an alliance to combine the power of large amounts of data with an accessible and widely spread AI, those examples just illustrates this potential.
Sustainable Agriculture
Nutrition can be improved through sustainable agriculture too, including farming, fisheries, livestock and forestry. In a framework where 80% of the world’s extremely poor and most hungry live in rural areas of the developing world, improving agriculture is a central element to reach SDG number 2. New ways to use AI can be applied to propel multisectorial approaches that connects not only governments, but also international organizations, civil society, the private sector and citizens in general. In the first article, we mentioned FarmView, an exclusive comprehensive system of sensing robots and AI to improve plant breeding and increase the growth of crops like the “sorghum”, used for food, drink production and biofuels. The project brings together engaged experts, agricultural leaders and plant scientists aiming to solve the world food crisis.
Another illustration is Mcrops application used by Uganda’s farmers as an important tool against hunger. With this app, farmers can analyze a plant with suspicion of contamination. It needs just a cellphone camera to combine AI in an accurate identification of the severity of the plague. The application also provides the information needed for immediate treatment of the plant, minimizing the risk of contamination of the whole plantation and consequent loss of food. Speaking of wasting food, a system developed by RapidMathematix uses deep learning and machine vision to combine information on the freshness of goods with smart pricing for lowering the prices as their freshness declines. The idea behind it is to reduce food waste and provide a better notion about consumption and effective storage.
While deforestation and degradation of soil quality continue to be a significant danger to food security, AI and machine learning can be very accurate in identifying food shortages associated to crop failures, droughts, natural disasters and conflicts. It is worth mentioning here that the Plantix application identifies possible defects through images captured by a smartphone camera. Developed by PEAT, an agricultural tech startup, the application uses deep learning to recognize possible defects and nutrients deficiencies in soil. It also provides the user with soil restoration techniques, tips and other potential solutions.
Global poverty, hunger and agriculture are interconnected, according to the World Bank, 65% of poor working adults make a living through agriculture. Artificial intelligence can be used in agricultural robots for collecting crops at a higher volume and faster pace. AI can launch computer vision and deep learning algorithms to process data for monitoring crops and soil condition. Through machine-learning models, it can track and predict ecological impacts on crop yields such as weather changes and plagues. It can possibly provide the world’s poorest farmers a way to elevate their financial status to buy and produce food.
Role of AI
Extending the use of AI to poverty-stricken people in rural areas requires investment in basic infrastructure, social services and policies that support the distribution of food and a sustainable agriculture. The lack of access caused by the absence of telecommunication infrastructure is a reality in many countries and the concentration of new technologies and big amount of data in the hands of a few only perpetuates that. Concentration of income and production, poverty, lack of political will and even disinformation together with the consolidation of a not very nutritious food culture are factors that compounds the scenario of hunger and malnutrition on the planet.
Artificial intelligence can be a protagonist in what comes to enhance production and productivity; it can lower operation costs and simplify access to markets, data, credit and capacity-building. Widely improved access to valuable information and knowledge can help agricultural participants make knowledgeable choices and use existing assets in the most productive and sustainable way. An AI decentralized alliance has the potential to pool both financial and technical resources from a diverse partnership while assisting in the validation of the models and building a sense of ownership, making it easier for decision makers to combine AI solutions into existing policies and programs.
To overcome hunger, misery and social exclusion it is essential that AI is aligned with human values. A decentralized alliance comes as an incentive to contribute to something that is benevolent, with altruism and responsibility at its core. When AI is created to act for the greater good there is no need to worry about it “stealing our jobs” or even controlling our lives. When it comes to reach SDG number 2, is it essential to evaluate the AI potential as a mechanism to also save lives. It is important to have in mind that those who are hungry have no choice and as a famous Brazilian song says, “People are made to shine, not to starve” (Caetano Veloso, 1978).
Text by Camila Froede
How can you get involved?
The vision of DAIA is to foster a world where AI technologies and associated data are made open with decentralized, democratic control for the benefit of all sentient beings.
The immense potential of AI means that it can either increase the inequalities of our societies or liberate us from numerous sufferings. We believe the best way forward is to come together and work practically toward creating a better future. We see a massive potential for evolution in the established centralized corporations. We believe tech giants can contribute immensely toward making the vision of DAIA a reality.
DAIA welcomes the participation of those corporations that are sincere about their aim and goal of democratizing AI. The open access networks that have come together to form DAIA, such as SingularityNET, Dbrain, Daneel, Liquid US, Toda.Network, are the enabling layer for such a democratization process.
To learn more about us and inquire for memberships, please contact us at team@daia.foundation.
