Here in Mulanje, southern Malawi, the effects of 2023's Cyclone Freddy are still being felt.

Local farmer Alex Maere survived the destruction when it tore through the area. Sadly, his farm didn't.

The 59-year-old saw decades of work disappear with the precious soil that the floods stripped from his small-scale farm in the foothills of Mount Mulanje.

"Cyclone (Freddy) affected the maize crop that we first planted. We ended up with no yield. As a result, we turned to cassava. In a good year, I harvest at least 17 bags, but I only managed 8 kilograms (17 pounds) of cassava after the cyclone swept this area. The harvest only lasted two days for me and my family, and as we speak, we have no food,” he says.

Freddy jolted local farmers into action. To survive, they needed to change their age-old tactics.

Now, thousands of small-scale farmers in the south-east African country are using a generative AI chatbot designed by the non-profit Opportunity International for farming advice.

The AI chatbot suggested Maere grow potatoes last year alongside his staple corn and cassava to adjust to his changed soil. He followed the instructions to the letter, he said, and cultivated half a soccer field's worth of potatoes and made more than $800 in sales, turning around his and his children's fortunes.

The Malawi government is backing the project, having seen the agriculture-dependent nation hit recently by a series of cyclones and an El Niño-induced drought.

The app is called Ulangizi, which means advisor in the country's Chichewa language. It is WhatsApp-based and works in Chichewa and English.

"The good thing with this chatbot, it provides response when you ask it by text. You can also ask it using voice, so it will retain a response using voice note. So this helps for people that are not able to read and write but it is also able to receive a question through pictures," explains Richard Chongo, Country Director for Opportunity International Malawi.

"So, we are working to help the smaller farmers manage and deal with the shocks that come due to the climate changes. We have seen that in the past few years we've been hit by different cyclones and we have seen the impact of climate change," he adds.

More than 80% of Malawi's population of 21 million rely on agriculture for their livelihoods and the country has one of the highest poverty rates in the world, according to the World Bank.

The AI chatbot could be lifesaving for small hold farmers like Filesi Topola.

“Cyclone Freddy left us literally without food. We did not harvest anything because all our fields were washed away. We don’t have anything to hold on to," she says.

Artificial intelligence has the potential to uplift agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa, where an estimated 33-50 million smallholder farms produce up to 70-80% of the food supply, according to the U.N.'s International Fund for Agricultural Development.

Private investment in agriculture-related tech in sub-Saharan Africa is on the up - going from $10 million (USD) in 2014 to $600 million (USD) in 2022, according to the World Bank.

However, there are obstacles.

Africa has hundreds of languages for AI tools to learn. Even then, few farmers have smartphones and many can't read. Electricity and internet service are patchy at best in rural areas, and often non-existent.

To combat that, farmer support agents have been brought in to help with the tech.

The agents generally have around 150-200 farmers to help and try to visit them in village groups once a week.

However, Malawi faces challenges in getting the tool to enough communities in the first place to make an extensive difference. Those communities don't just need smartphones, but also to be able to afford internet access.

Malawi’s food crisis, which is largely down to the struggles of small-scale farmers, is a central issue for its upcoming national elections.

AP video shot by Kenneth Jali

Production by Sebabatso Mosamo and Kenneth Jali