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Claim: Some Facebook users shared videos depicting robots carrying out agricultural activities on farms in China, spreading fear of potential job loss in the sector globally.
Verdict: FALSE. Forensic analyses revealed that the video had been altered, as the robots were digitally used to replace human farmers in the keyframes.
Full Text
Technological advancements, climate change, and shifting consumer demands influence the global agricultural landscape. As nations strive to enhance food security and agricultural productivity, insecurity and food scarcity remain pressing issues, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. Despite the agriculture sector employing more Nigerians than any other sector and accounting for approximately 22.6% of the GDP as of 2024’s second quarter, several hurdles still threaten food security in Nigeria.
Data from the World Bank’s Food Security Update report revealed that food inflation increased by 37.5% in Nigeria as of August 2024. The roots of this crisis are deeply intertwined with ongoing insecurity in many regions of the country. The Boko Haram insurgency has devastated agricultural production in the Northeast, while conflicts between farmers and herders in the Northwest have further disrupted food supply chains. These conflicts have led to increased violence against farmers. Reports indicate that over 165 farmers lost their lives due to farmland insecurity in 2024 alone.
Alternative means are welcome ideas for long-term agricultural sustainability as Nigeria grapples with these intertwined insecurity and food scarcity challenges. This is why it was not contested when different Facebook users shared a video showing a robot carrying out agricultural activities. The text on the two-minute, 27-second video indicates that the robot is found in a small Chinese village and could carry out every farming activity. The videos were also found here, here, and here.
Nigerians’ comments on the posts implied that they believed the video and praised the supposed innovation as a much-needed intervention in Nigeria’s agricultural sector. In contrast, others said that it was an edited video.
The differing thoughts prompted DUBAWA to fact-check the video.
Verification
We subjected the video to Deepware.ai, a digital tool that detects deepfake videos. Three of the four model results it generated, Deepware, Seferbekov, and Ensemble, detected a deepfake rate of 55%, 97%, and 83%, respectively.
DUBAWA also discovered several anomalies after using InVid WeVerify, a video verification tool, to extract different keyframes from the video for analysis.
For instance, it is expected that the robot’s feet should be covered when walking in water. However, the robot’s feet were floating throughout.
In another instance, the robot does not grasp items properly, implying that the robot was superimposed on the original holder of such item.
We found instances where China deployed robots to carry out agricultural activities, but they bore no semblance to the robots in the viral claim. An example is the robots on Diantian Farm on Shanghai’s outskirts.
Conclusion
Though China is deploying robots and artificial intelligence in the agriculture sector, the robot in the viral video is a case of digital manipulation. Therefore, it is false.
