The apple of my eye: How I’ve created a plant-health tracker for farmers in TanzaniaDownload PDF WHERE I WORK17 November 2025Neema Mduma is a machine-intelligence researcher building a crop-science app.ByTavares Cebola0Tavares CebolaTavares Cebola is a freelance reporter.View author publicationsSearch author on: PubMed Google ScholarNeema Mduma is a computer scientist at the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology, Arusha, Tanzania. Credit: Kang-Chun Cheng for Nature“This photo was taken in August, in the Sing’isi village in Arusha, northern Tanzania, where my colleagues and I were conducting a field visit to farmers. I was demonstrating how to use a mobile app — named KilimoAI — to examine crop leaves. The app, which we’ve developed in-house, works by analysing a photograph of the plant to detect possible disease symptoms.This is part of my role in the Artificial Intelligence and Complexity Systems group at the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology in Arusha. I guide projects that aim to apply artificial intelligence to real-world challenges in agriculture, conservation and development.To create the app, my colleagues and I took thousands of photos of plant leaves at farms, of both healthy and diseased crops. So far, we’ve focused on diseases affecting maize (corn), beans (Phaseolus spp.), bananas and potatoes.After collection, images go through a verification process with the help of plant pathologists at the Tanzania Agricultural Research Institute in Arusha. We use this data set to train machine-learning models to distinguish between healthy and diseased plants, and even to classify specific disease types. A portion of the data is set aside for testing, so that we can evaluate the model’s accuracy.Nature 647, 814 (2025)doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-03723-zThis interview has been edited for length and clarity. How does agricultural land become forest? I trek to find out Can creativity in science be learnt? These researchers think so How I’m helping to develop more-resilient food systemsSubjectsCareersArchaeologyArchitectureLatest on:CareersArchaeologyArchitectureJobs PhD ScholarshipDiscover how native plant diversity and soil microbes restore soil carbon in Australian soils, integrating fieldwork, lab analysis, and data science.Perth (Suburb), Western Australia (AU)Soil & Landscape Science, Curtin UniversityFaculty Positions in AI for Life Sciences at Westlake UniversityInvites applications for tenure-track or tenured faculty positions at all academic ranks in the field of artificial intelligence for life sciences.Hangzhou, Zhejiang (CN)Westlake University School of Life Science