Supporting extension workers to use AI well

Why extension workers matter here

Extension workers are the link between departments and farmers. They spend their days travelling between villages, answering questions, running demonstrations and filling in reports, often with little time for paperwork. Many already use their phones for messages and some will already be trying AI tools, with or without guidance.

As an officer, your job is to help them use AI where it saves time and to make sure the checks from earlier modules happen in practice. This module covers three common tasks: preparing messages, translation and record keeping.

Preparing messages for farmers

AI can help an extension worker turn approved technical advice into a short, clear message: a text message, a voice script, a talking point for a village meeting or a simple leaflet.

The rule is simple: AI rewrites approved advice; it does not create new advice. In practice:

• Start from your department's current recommendations, not from the AI's own knowledge.
• Ask the tool to make the text shorter and plainer, without adding products, doses or claims.
• Compare the result line by line with the source. Any new product, number or instruction that was not in the source must be removed.
• Technical content (pesticides, fertiliser rates, animal treatment) goes through the specialist check described in module 2 before release.
• Keep messages specific: what to do, when and what safety steps to take.

The plain language rewrite and social media post prompts can be adapted for farmer messages.

Translation into local languages

Farmers often understand advice best in their own language. AI machine translation can produce a first draft in Urdu or a regional language, but quality varies and technical terms are easily mistranslated. A crop name, pest name or unit can come out wrong in ways that change the advice.

• Use the regional language translation prompt as a starting point.
• Check every number, unit, product name and timing in the translation against the original.
• Have every message checked by a fluent speaker from the area, ideally one who also knows farming terms.
• Prefer the words farmers actually use locally for crops, pests and tools.

For farmers who do not read, a voice message recorded by a local extension worker is often clearer and more trusted than a synthetic voice.

Record keeping

Extension workers keep visit notes, attendance lists, demonstration records and monthly reports. AI can help:

• turn rough notes or voice memos into a tidy visit record
• summarise a month of visit notes into a report
• organise attendance and activity data into a table

The how-to guide on AI and record keeping covers the mechanics. Checks that matter:

• Accuracy. Numbers of farmers met, demonstration plots and inputs distributed must match what actually happened. AI can round, invent or drop figures. The worker who was there checks the record before it is filed.
• No invented activity. AI summaries can make a month sound busier or more successful than it was. Reports must describe what happened, nothing more.
• Personal data. Attendance lists and visit notes contain farmers' names and phone numbers. Use only tools your department has approved for this data and never a public AI tool. See personal data.
• Honest records. Mark records that were prepared with AI help and who checked them. This builds a reliable audit trail.

Supporting your team

• Give extension workers a short, written list of what AI may and may not be used for in your office, in line with your department's instructions.
• Share a few tested prompts that start from approved advice.
• Name the specialists who must check technical messages and make it easy to reach them.
• Ask workers to report wrong or risky AI answers they come across, so others can learn from them.
• Do not let AI tools become a reason to reduce field visits. Farmers value a person who comes to the field.

The module on leading responsible AI use in your office has more on setting team rules.

Try it

Take a short piece of published advice from your department on a common crop or livestock practice. Ask an AI assistant to turn it into a text message of no more than three sentences for farmers, then translate it into Urdu. Compare both versions line by line with the source. Remove anything added and ask a fluent colleague to check the Urdu.

Check yourself

1. What is the basic rule when using AI to prepare messages for farmers?
2. Why must the extension worker who made a visit check an AI-prepared visit record?
3. Give two ways an officer can support extension workers in using AI safely.

Answers: (1) AI rewrites approved advice; it does not create new advice. (2) Because AI can round, invent or drop figures and only the person who was there knows what happened. (3) Any two of: a written list of permitted uses, tested prompts, named specialists for checking, a way to report wrong answers, keeping field visits.