Belém, Brazil. | 11 November, 2025 – At COP30, the Agricultural Innovation
Mechanism for Scale (AIM for Scale) announced a joint ambition to reach 100 million farmers with digital advisory services by 2030. Supported by the International Affairs Office of the Presidential Court of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Gates Foundation, the coalition brings together the Asian Development Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, and the Governments of Ethiopia and India, among others, under the stewardship of AIM for Scale.
These efforts aim to deliver science-based insights–such as weather forecasts, pest advisories, or soil information–directly to farmers, improving decision-making, productivity, and climate resilience at scale. This milestone is tied to AIM for Scale’s new Innovation Package on Digital Advisory Services for Agriculture and builds on its previous Innovation Package on Weather Forecasts for Farmers, launched at COP29, which mobilized over $1 billion in commitments from multilateral development banks and partners to scale weather services for farmers.
Her Excellency Mariam Almheiri, Chair of the International Affairs Office at the UAE Presidential Court, emphasized: “Around the world, millions of farmers face climate uncertainty every day. Turning that uncertainty into opportunity is what drives us. This is a testament to the UAE’s global role – not only in advancing innovative solutions, but in collaborating with global partners to adopt and scale them. AIM for Scale embodies this vision – bringing together governments, development banks, and partners to channel investment into solutions that can be deployed widely and sustainably, improving livelihoods and strengthening food systems around the world.”
Partner Highlights
As a key member of the AIM for Scale partnership, the Asian Development Bank is committed to helping 20 million farmers across the Asia and the Pacific region to access timely advisories backed by weather forecasts, as part of its commitment to help improve food production. Noelle O’Brien, Director of Climate Change at the Asian Development Bank, explained that “ADB is engaging in this partnership to promote the use of digital solutions as well as catalyze more investments into weather and climate information services to aid agriculture production.”
In Ethiopia, the Agricultural Transformation Institute (ATI) is partnering with AIM for Scale to provide tailored advisories to more than seven million farmers through the country’s trusted 8028 Hotline. Beginning in 2026, AIM for Scale will expand collaboration with multilateral development banks and governments in eleven additional countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America to embed digital advisory services into national agricultural systems. Through these partnerships, AIM for Scale aims to reach 100 million farmers globally by 2030, enabling them to access timely, actionable information that supports more resilient and productive agricultural livelihoods.
Partners are already making significant progress toward this shared goal. In India, the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare delivered AI-based monsoon onset forecasts via SMS to 38 million farmers earlier this year—the largest effort to date to provide targeted, AI-driven weather information. Monitoring surveys in two states showed near-universal interest in receiving future forecasts (97–98%), underscoring the high value farmers place on these services.
“This program harnesses the revolution in AI-based weather forecasting to predict the arrival of continuous rains, empowering farmers to plan agricultural activities with greater confidence and manage risks,” noted Pramod Meherda, Additional Secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare of India. “We look forward to continuing to improve this effort in future years.”
This milestone was made possible partly through a collaboration between the Human-Centered Weather Forecasts Initiative at the University of Chicago and Precision Development–supported by AIM for Scale–which helped advance the scientific foundation of the project and ensure that forecasts were communicated clearly and effectively. “These forecasts were successful in many ways, including by correctly predicting a pause in the northward progression of the monsoon,” noted Nobel Laureate Michael Kremer, co-Director of the Human-Centered Weather Forecasts Initiative and Chair of AIM for Scale’s Advisory Panel. “No other forecasts provided guidance to farmers on this unusual progression, especially with a two-to-four-week lead time. This illustrates how advances in AI weather forecasting can translate into practical, decision-relevant information for farmers–often delivered at very low cost.”
To sustain these advances, partners launched the AIM for Scale AI Weather Forecasting for Agriculture Training Program in Abu Dhabi–a collaboration between the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, the UAE National Center for Meteorology, and the University of Chicago. The program, supported by the International Affairs Office of the Presidential Court of the UAE, brought together meteorological and agricultural agencies from Bangladesh, Chile, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Nigeria for intensive, hands-on training in September 2025 and will expand to 25 additional countries by 2027.
“Our goal is simple,” said Paul Winters, Executive Director of AIM for Scale and Professor at the University of Notre Dame Keough School of Global Affairs. “Every farmer—regardless of where they live—should have access to the information they need to confidently make decisions that will strengthen their livelihoods. Reaching 100 million farmers is ambitious, but by working together and investing in scalable, evidence-based solutions, it’s within reach.”
Building on early commitments from the Asian Development Bank and the Government of Ethiopia, and continued progress in India, other partners are working closely with AIM for Scale to facilitate the scaling of digital advisory services, as well as design complementary initiatives to sustain long-term impact.
“By collaborating with partners like AIM for Scale, we can bring the best technical expertise to our region, adapt proven models to local contexts, and contribute lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean to global knowledge,” commented Morgan Doyle, General Manager of the Southern Cone Regional Country Department of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). “The IDB is committed to helping every country in the Americas turn innovation into inclusion—building food systems that are more productive, resilient, and adaptive. With the partnerships we forge here at COP30, we can ensure that digital agriculture reaches every corner of our region—so that by 2030, innovation truly impacts everyone.”
These efforts are reinforced by new strategic investments from the Gates Foundation, which are advancing forecast benchmarking across Africa to evaluate the real-world performance of AI models and ensure innovations deliver measurable value for farmers. “While these models have transformative potential, it is essential to evaluate them locally to ensure they appropriately represent local conditions for small-scale farmers, policy makers, and private enterprise use,” noted Neil Hausmann, Principal Officer at the Gates Foundation.
The Gates Foundation investments in benchmarking will be channeled to AIM for Scale partner the Human-Centered Forecast Initiative at University of Chicago, co-directed by Amir Jina, Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago and Chair of the AIM for Scale Weather Forecasts for Farmers Technical Panel. “Last-mile delivery is where digital advisory services succeed or fail,” said Professor Jina, speaking from COP30. “We need to rigorously test what works for farmers in real conditions—how messages are delivered, understood, and acted upon. The more we learn from those interactions, the more effective and scalable digital systems become.”
