AgriFence
AI-powered crop disease diagnosis and climate resilience advisor for smallholder farmers
IBM Z × UNSA Sheridan Hackathon 2026 | SDG 2 · SDG 3 · SDG 13
The Story That Started This
Every monsoon season across India's paddy-growing deltas — in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Odisha — the same scene repeats itself. A farmer notices something wrong with the crop. Leaves yellowing at the edges. Water-soaked lesions creeping up the stem. Plants wilting in patches, spreading outward like a stain.
They know something is wrong. They don't know what. And they don't know what to do.
The nearest Krishi Vigyan Kendra (agricultural extension centre) is often 30–50 kilometres away. The visiting agronomist comes once a fortnight, if at all. By the time anyone arrives, names the disease, and recommends a treatment — bacterial leaf blight, copper oxychloride, act fast — more than half the crop is already gone. Weeks of labour. Months of income. Lost to something diagnosable and treatable, if only it had been caught earlier.
This is not an exception. It is the pattern.
India has over 86 million smallholder farmers, most working plots under 2 hectares. Together they produce 51% of the country's food. Yet they remain the most underserved people in the agricultural knowledge chain. The average Indian farmer loses 15–25% of each harvest to diseases that are, in most cases, diagnosable and treatable — if caught early.
The problem isn't knowledge. The knowledge exists. The problem is distance — the distance between a sick crop and the nearest expert who can name what's wrong with it.
AgriFence closes that distance to zero.
What It Does
AgriFence is a web application that lets any farmer — with or without agricultural training — get an instant, expert-quality diagnosis of their crop by:
- Uploading a photo of the affected plant, or simply describing what they see
- Entering basic context — crop type, region, current season
- Receiving a full diagnosis in seconds: disease name, severity level, confidence score, step-by-step treatment plan, climate risk assessment, and organic/low-cost alternatives
- Asking follow-up questions in plain language via a built-in chat interface
UN SDG Alignment
| Goal | How AgriFence Addresses It |
|---|---|
| SDG 2 — Zero Hunger | Early disease detection prevents crop loss, directly protecting food security for farming families and local food supply |
| SDG 3 — Good Health & Well-being | Recommends safe, measured pesticide use; promotes organic alternatives; prevents over-application of chemicals near water sources |
| SDG 13 — Climate Action | Every diagnosis includes a climate risk context — temperature sensitivity, humidity thresholds, and season-specific advice to help farmers adapt to changing conditions |
For the 86 million smallholder farmers who feed the world — and are still waiting to be heard.
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