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The Foundation for Arable Research (FAR) has expanded its range of information delivery tools to include a phone app that searches FAR research results to answer questions on everything from crop nutrition to cereal disease management.

FAR Communication Manager Anna Heslop says the new app is a further development of the website search tool Ask FAR^AI which was released in August last year.

“Ask FAR^AI is an AI assistant developed to improve grower access to information on the FAR website. When you Ask FAR^AI a question, you’ll get a summary of all information on that subject from the FAR website (and only the FAR website) along with a list of links to the relevant FAR information sheets and booklets.

“The FAR website has always been a goldmine of information, but until the introduction of Ask FAR^AI the sheer quantity of publications made finding answers to specific questions very time consuming. No matter how we tweaked search functions or tags, website searches were still bringing up lists of 50 or more relevant documents rather than seasonally relevant information for a specific crop and problem.

“Ask FAR^AI, both the online version and the new app, solves that problem. Simply ask a question and the tool reviews all publications on the FAR website before delivering a succinct summary, with links to the original documents, in a matter of seconds. It’s a game changer.”

Anna Heslop says that rather than creating the newly released app from scratch, the AskFAR^AI development team at Custom-D found a quicker and cheaper solution...building it on What’s App.

“It’s a neat trick taking advantage of a tool that many growers are already using every day. Users simply add the Ask FAR^AI phone number [+64 27 277 2536] to their phone contacts, and from there, to their What’s App contacts...typing their questions into What’s App, just as they would any other message or text.”

Anna Heslop says FAR is constantly seeking the most efficient ways to get information to arable farmers and that the new app is part of an updated digital extension strategy which also includes videos, webinars and virtual events.

“But, don’t worry”, she says. “We’re still flat out organising field days and writing research updates and other publications as well. We just want to be sure that when it comes to delivering information, we’re using every method available to us.”