Tumaini App: Crop Health for Bananas & Beans

With Tumaini, early detection of diseases and pests becomes possible, helping prevent outbreaks and preserve crops. The app analyzes uploaded photos to provide accurate diagnoses, and its georeferenced data enables real-time disease mapping. As a tool for disease surveillance, Tumaini also supports research with its expanding database of images and geolocated information, offering valuable insights for ongoing banana crop health efforts.

Tumaini app is a crop disease detection tool that can detect symptoms on any part of the crop – including the fruit, bunch or plant – and can read low-quality images, even those containing background noise, like other plants or leaves, to maximize accuracy. Once the pest or disease afflicting a crop is identified, swift and targeted action can reduce the extent of outbreaks and potentially save entire harvests.

Tumaini is available in English, Spanish, French, Tamil and Swahili.

Tumaini for Bananas

The AI-powered image recognition detects symptoms of seven major diseases, like Fusarium Wilt and Sigatoka Negra, and a common pest, the banana weevil. Users can scan different parts of the plant, follow a step-by-step process, and receive real-time diagnoses and treatment recommendations.

Tumaini for  Beans

Utilizing advanced image recognition technology, the app can detect signs of five major common bean diseases—including Angular Leaf Spot, Common Bean Bacterial Blight, Common Bean Anthracnose, Common Bean Mosaic Virus, and Common Bean Rust—with a 90% success rate.

Users can scan infected leaves and pods to receive real-time diagnoses and step-by-step treatment recommendations. Just like its banana counterpart, Tumaini allows for the mapping of infected plants, enabling users to monitor the geographical spread of diseases

Since its release, Tumaini has seen widespread adoption and notable success in various regions.

• Deployment and Regional Adaptation: The app has been deployed globally in banana-producing regions like Colombia, India, Ecuador, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, China, and Benin. Regional models for each continent achieve success rates of 70% to 99%, depending on the plant part and disease detected.

• Advanced Detection and Offline Use: In addition to mobile use, Tumaini has been adapted for drone-captured images, allowing the detection of healthy and infected plants from aerial views. A 2020 update also enabled offline functionality, making the app more accessible to farmers in remote areas.

• User Engagement and Reach:

  • Over 14,000 downloads on Google Play, with iOS availability as of June 2024.
  • The top user countries include India, Ecuador, and Colombia, with an average of over 1,000 active users each month.
  • Most users operate Tumaini on Android versions between 7.0 and 15.0, showcasing its compatibility with both older and newer devices.

• Research and Recognition: Tumaini’s impact was highlighted in a 2019 Plant Methods paper, one of the most successful publications for Bioversity International and CIAT that year. The app's success has attracted significant media coverage and interest from industry stakeholders looking to expand its reach.

• Future Potential: The researchers envision Tumaini as a step toward a satellite-connected network for real-time, global pest and disease control.

All data collected via mobile and drone platforms are integrated into Tumaini’s online dashboard, accessible at https://tumainiaiapp.org, where users can track real-time disease mapping and monitor health trends across banana fields.

This technology, along with our development pipeline, is readily adaptable to other crops. Building on this, we are excited to introduce TumainiBeans—a similar solution, released in October 2024, tailored specifically for the common bean crop.