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This paper describes and evaluates a multistage approach to AI deployment. Each stage involves a more accurate method of inference, yet engaging each comes with an increasing cost. In outlining the architecture, we present a method for quantifying model uncertainty that facilitates confident deferral decisions. The architecture is currently under active deployment to thousands of cotton farmers across India. The broader idea however is applicable to a growing sector of AI deployments in challenging low resources settings.

This paper presents a dataset of agricultural pest images captured over five years by thousands of small holder farmers and farming extension workers across India. The dataset has been used to support a mobile application that relies on artificial intelligence to assist farmers with pest management decisions. Creation came from a mix of organized data collection, and from mobile application usage that was less controlled. This makes the dataset unique within the pest detection community, exhibiting a number of characteristics that place it closer to other non-agricultural objected detection datasets. This not only makes the dataset applicable to future pest management applications, it opens the door for a wide variety of other research agendas.