Food systems research—and more generally, policy and development research—often relies on structured surveys, administrative data, or experiments. While these approaches yield valuable quantitative insights, they tend to miss critical qualitative dimensions. One useful qualitative approach is open-ended interview questions. When such responses are collected in participants’ native languages, they can provide rich and nuanced information—for example, on the complex local challenges smallholder farmers face.
However, analyzing free-form text can be costly, time-consuming, and inconsistent across analysts. These challenges become even more pronounced when responses are in local or less widely spoken languages.