- Digital agriculture initiatives have tested how mobile technology and digital services can improve smallholder farmers’ access to information, markets and finance.
By Collins Marita,
Africa has made important strides in using digital technology to improve smallholder agriculture.
Farmers can increasingly access weather forecasts, market information, agronomic advice and financial services through mobile phones.
Yet a critical question remains: what happens to these services when the projects and funding that support them come to an end?
This is the sustainability question that Africa’s digital agriculture sector must now confront. Developing an innovative solution is one thing; ensuring it remains affordable, accessible and useful to farmers long after the initial investment has ended is another.
As leaders in agriculture, finance, technology and development gathered in Nairobi on Tuesday for the 10th AgriFin Learning Event, convened by Prosper Global AgriFin and partners, this challenge took centre stage.
Under the theme Leveraging Evidence for Connected, Scalable and Inclusive Digital Agriculture, the discussions pointed to a necessary shift: Africa must move beyond celebrating successful pilots and focus on building systems that can sustain and scale what works.
For more than a decade, digital agriculture initiatives have tested how mobile technology and digital services can improve smallholder farmers’ access to information, markets and finance.
These efforts have generated valuable lessons and expanded the reach of services across the continent.
Prosper Global AgriFin’s programmes, for example, have reached more than 8.5 million farmers, 41 per cent of them women, with digital information services.
That progress matters. But reach alone is not enough. The real measure of success is whether farmers continue to benefit from these services, whether providers can sustain them financially and whether the wider agricultural ecosystem is equipped to support their growth.
The funding question can no longer be postponed
Digital agriculture has often depended on donor funding to develop solutions, test business models and reach underserved farming communities. This support has been important in reducing the risks of experimentation and bringing different actors together. However, as development finance becomes more constrained, relying on grants to sustain services indefinitely is not a viable long-term strategy.
The answer is not to withdraw support from smallholder farmers. Nor is it to assume that every digital solution must immediately become commercially profitable.
Rather, it is to rethink how services are financed, who pays for them, who benefits and how the costs and risks are shared.
Governments, financial institutions, agribusinesses, technology providers, investors and development partners all have a role to play.
Domestic resources, blended finance, strategic public-private partnerships and stronger local private-sector participation can help create more resilient financing models.
This requires looking beyond individual projects to the incentives and relationships that make an agricultural market function.
A digital platform may provide valuable advice, for instance, but its long-term viability will depend on whether farmers can access it, whether the information is relevant to their decisions and whether there is a sustainable way to pay for delivering the service.
We must also recognise that different services require different financing models. Some may generate revenue directly from users or commercial partners.
Others, particularly those serving remote or low-income communities, may deliver substantial public benefits that justify continued public or development support.
Sustainability should therefore mean that services have a credible, long-term operating and financing model—not that every service must operate in the same way.
Technology must solve real problems
The pressure to innovate can sometimes lead the sector to focus too heavily on the technology itself. But farmers do not adopt digital tools simply because they are new. They use them when the tools address problems that affect their livelihoods.
Across Africa, smallholder farmers face increasingly unpredictable weather, pests and diseases, fluctuating market prices, high input costs and limited access to affordable credit. These challenges are interconnected, and digital services must respond to that reality.
Timely weather information can help a farmer decide when to plant. Pest and disease alerts can support early intervention.
Digital payments can make transactions more convenient and create opportunities to build a financial history.
Access to market information can help farmers make better-informed decisions about where and when to sell.
Artificial intelligence could strengthen these services by making agricultural advice more responsive to local conditions, helping farmers interpret information and connecting them to relevant knowledge and opportunities. But AI is not a substitute for reliable data, accessible infrastructure or trust.
Its value will depend on whether it delivers practical benefits to farmers, including those with limited connectivity, digital literacy or access to smartphones.
The sector must therefore resist the temptation to scale technology for its own sake. The priority should be to identify a clear farmer need, establish that a solution works in its context and build a model that can deliver value consistently.
The missing link is often the connection between systems
Many of the building blocks for digital agriculture already exist. There are mobile networks, financial service providers, agricultural technology companies, extension systems, farmer organisations, markets and public institutions. Yet these elements do not always work together effectively.
A farmer may receive useful production advice but lack the credit to buy the recommended inputs. Another may increase production but struggle to find a reliable market.
A third may have access to finance but lack the weather information needed to make an informed investment decision.
These gaps reveal why isolated interventions often struggle to deliver lasting impact. Digital agriculture works best when information, finance, inputs, infrastructure and markets reinforce one another.
Stronger partnerships can help close these gaps. Financial institutions can work with technology providers to develop products suited to smallholder farmers.
Agribusinesses can support access to markets and connect digital services to their supply chains. Governments can create an enabling policy environment, invest in public infrastructure and make relevant data more accessible.
Development partners can help test emerging models, generate evidence and mobilise investment where commercial incentives alone are insufficient.
The objective should be to build connected systems in which farmers can move from information to action—and from improved decisions to better economic outcomes.
Evidence must shape investment decisions
As the sector considers what comes next, evidence must do more than demonstrate that a programme reached a certain number of people or deployed a particular technology.
It must help decision-makers understand what works, for whom, under what conditions and at what cost.
This is especially important when resources are limited. Governments, funders and investors need to know which interventions are producing meaningful benefits, which business models are viable and which approaches can be adapted to different markets.
Evidence should inform where capital is directed, how partnerships are structured and what needs to change when an intervention falls short. It should also help identify who is being left behind.
Women farmers, for example, may face different barriers to accessing finance, digital tools and markets. Expanding the reach of a service does not automatically mean these barriers have been addressed.
Inclusion must be assessed in terms of whether farmers can access and use the service, whether it responds to their needs and whether it contributes to improved livelihoods.
Learning must also be continuous. Agricultural markets, climate conditions and technology are changing rapidly. Models that worked in one location or period may require adaptation elsewhere.
Sharing lessons across countries and institutions can help the sector avoid repeating mistakes and direct investment towards approaches with a stronger prospect of lasting impact.
Climate resilience must be part of the business case
The sustainability of digital agriculture is also inseparable from the growing risks facing African food systems.
Climate shocks, including prolonged dry spells and intense rainfall, can undermine farm productivity, increase financial losses and make agricultural lending more difficult.
These risks are often cited as reasons for investors to be cautious about agriculture. Yet better information and more responsive services can help reduce some of the uncertainty.
Digital weather forecasts, early warnings, climate-smart agronomic advice and improved access to extension services can help farmers prepare for changing conditions.
For financial institutions and agricultural businesses, such tools can support better-informed decisions about lending, risk management and service delivery.
However, digital information is only useful when farmers can act on it. Early warnings need to reach communities in accessible formats and in time to influence decisions.
Advice must reflect local conditions, while farmers need access to the finance, inputs and markets required to respond.
This is another reason to invest in connections rather than standalone technologies. Climate resilience requires information to be linked to practical options for action.
From promising pilots to lasting impact
The next phase of digital agriculture in Africa will depend on whether the sector can translate years of experimentation into systems that endure.
That means being more deliberate about financing, more rigorous about evidence and more intentional about partnerships.
It also means recognising that sustainability is not an issue to address at the end of a project. It must shape decisions from the beginning: how a service is designed, who it serves, how it will be financed, what incentives encourage adoption and which institutions will support it over time.
The 10th AgriFin Learning Event offers an opportunity to draw on a decade of experience and ask harder questions about the future of digital agriculture.
The task ahead is not simply to build more tools, launch more pilots or reach more farmers. It is to ensure that the solutions already showing promise can become part of the systems on which farmers depend.
Africa does not lack ideas or innovation. The challenge is to connect them to sustainable financing, trusted partnerships, functioning markets and the everyday realities of smallholder farmers.
That is how digital agriculture can move from promising projects to lasting value—and help build food systems that are more productive, inclusive and resilient.
The writer, Collins Marita, is a Technical Director for Strategic Learning at Prosper Global AgriFin