Accelerating Digital Transformation in Agriculture

Author: Sander Janssen

Publish Date: 11 October 2021

Digital technologies have strong potential to support the transformation of agriculture, building a resilient, sustainable and inclusive agrifood system [1]. As key enablers, digital innovations can play a catalytic role – especially in the wake of COVID-19 – by improving the capacity of small-scale producers (SSPs) to adapt to external shocks and increasing productivity and profitability. With more than 33 million smallholder farmers and pastoralists [2] already registered on such platforms, sub-Saharan Africa alone has seen a rapid increase in the adoption of digital solutions, recording an annual growth of 44 per cent over the three-year period ending in 2018. Despite a rapid expansion of the digitalisation for agriculture (D4Ag) sector across low-and-middle income countries, the reach and sustainable use of D4Ag solutions remains fairly low, especially among SSPs. Only 13 per cent of smallholders in sub-Saharan Africa are registered for any digital service and far fewer are actively using such services [3]. Inadequate access to the Internet and digital services, coupled with issues of affordability, disability and a growing digital divide, are among factors that have widened the disconnect. One of the main barriers holding back investment in D4Ag solutions and their impact at scale is lack of cost-effective ways of comparing and contrasting solutions, and making informed decisions on which ones will really work.

Promoting alliances and investments

Despite a highly complex and fragmented digital sector, there is significant potential for establishing sustainable partnerships and investments. For this reason, there is a growing need for greater coordination of D4Ag solutions and their overarching ecosystem, but how best to achieve this?

Stewart Collis from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), says that Digital Agri Hub (the Hub) can play an important role in driving D4Ag solutions for small-scale producers: “Evidence suggests bundled digital farmer services positively impact small-scale producers’ livelihoods by improving access to inputs, information on managing crops and livestock, obtaining climate mitigating finance and insurance and accessing markets. Digital Agri Hub will collate the essential data necessary to understand which combinations of services are reaching men and women small-scale producers at scale with impact, and act as a guide for investment and adoption of the most impactful digital agriculture products, solutions and services.”

Josh Woodard from The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) adds: "As the number of digital solutions in the agricultural sector continues to grow, the Digital Agri Hub will allow practitioners to make more informed decisions and bring clarity to a fragmented information landscape. We're excited by the potential for greater impact as a result of a more cohesive digital agriculture space."

Convinced of the scope for digital technologies in the agriculture sector, FCDO, BMGF and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) are co-funding the Hub to monitor and track the development of digital for agriculture solutions, and their impact in helping to achieve a climate-resilient, sustainable and inclusive food system. Responding to the direct needs of the diverse stakeholder groups that play an active role in D4Ag will be an important focus for the Hub. To this end, it has conducted a needs assessment, with the aim of identifying, unpacking and addressing the major needs for each of the different actors on the pathway towards the sustainable growth of the sector.

The emerging issues

Across the nine identified stakeholder groups, made up of donors, (impact) investors, D4Ag solution providers, agri-food value chain actors, agritech companies, innovation repositories, policy makers and direct implementers (farmers’ organizations and non-governmental organisations), a broad range of issues has emerged. Tomaso Ceccarelli, the lead coordinator on this Ecosystem coordination activity from the Digital Agri Hub team, observes that: “Stakeholders have different perspectives and goals. But there is one trait that unites most of them, and this is the need for a structured overview on initiatives and reliable insights on the impact of D4Ag.”

Gigi Gatti from Grameen Foundation USA – one of the Digital Agri Hub partners – says that: “It is essential to work with existing D4Ag networks and Communities of Practice to understand how to best connect them to the Hub.”

Responding to these diverse needs is a key success parameter for the Hub, integrating such crucial and different perspectives in its programme of work. Simona Benvenuti from the Netherlands Advisory Board on Impact Investing (NAB) – a Digital Agri Hub partner – experiences that "to accelerate the mobilization of private-sector capital into D4Ag it is critical to provide impact-based data on existing D4Ag solutions and insights to mitigate investment risk, thus facilitating collaboration amongst the different types of capital providers and knowledge exchange globally across the value chain".

Daniele Tricarico, from GSMA, also a Digital Agri Hub partner, has closely assessed the development of the D4Ag sector and worked with a number of different solution providers in collaboration with mobile operators. From his perspective, "it is exciting to see a growing number of D4AG services coming to market, but this fast-paced sector also experiences a high level of fragmentation and many short-lived initiatives. It is therefore crucial to quickly identify emerging best practices and highlight the operational and business models that can support truly sustainable, scalable solutions".

Inclusion for all stands out as a critical prerequisite for the sustainable development of D4Ag. In support, Eunice Likoko, from Wageningen University and Research (WUR), adds that: “For women and marginalised groups, improved access to D4Ag solutions will be stimulated by understanding and addressing the barriers they face in accessing digital solutions. Intervention strategies need to go beyond minimal participation of excluded groups, to adopt more empowering approaches that address underlying barriers to promote sustainable and realistic adoption of digital solutions for these groups’’.

A hub for inclusive agricultural transformation

To ensure the strong and sustainable growth of the D4Ag sector, a better tracking mechanism will be central to the success of Digital Agri Hub, while supporting the everyday decision-making process of D4Ag actors across the agrifood system. Whether the decision is to partner with another D4Ag solution provider, to invest in a D4Ag solution, to create awareness and stimulate the development of the sector in a particular country, or to invest in digital developments for societal impact, access to insights, data and knowledge is crucial. It is Digital Agri Hub’s firm intention to truly act as a hub, bringing partners together, creating capacity and connecting actors to one another, helping them to share their insights and best practices towards inclusive agricultural transformation.

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[1] World Bank, 2019. Future of Food: Harnessing Digital Technologies to Improve Food System Outcomes (available here).
[2] 13% of all sub-Saharan African smallholders and pastoralists and up to 45% of smallholder households, depending on assumptions used to calculate penetration.
[3] D4Ag solutions refer to the digitally enabled business models and technologies to address farmers and food system actors’ constraints (e.g. around market access, inputs, financing and climate).

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Author: WUR, FAO, Digital Green, Kissan AI and Ubuntoo

Publish Date: 14 April 2025

The Digital Agri Hub’s webinar on “ Unlocking Generative AI for Agriculture in LMICs ” brought together perspectives from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations(FAO), Digital Green, Ubuntoo, Kissan AI, and the Digital Agri Hub to explore how GenAI can transform food systems in low- and middle-income countries. From AI-powered advisory services and multilingual chatbots to context-aware LLMs, the session highlighted real-world tools, ethical challenges, and scaling strategies. A strong call emerged for cross-sector collaboration, curated data, and inclusive design.

Transforming Agriculture in LMICs with GenAI: What We Learned

On April 3, 2025, the Digital Agri Hub hosted a webinar exploring the potential of generative AI (GenAI) to tackle pressing challenges in agriculture across low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). From deploying Large Language Models (LLMs) to building chatbots, to curating local knowledge for food safety, the 90-minute session offered insights from developers, researchers, and practitioners at the forefront of digital innovation.

Sander Janssen from Wageningen University and Research (WUR) opened the session by framing the critical question: What does generative AI mean for agriculture in LMICs, and how do we use it responsibly? With the arrival of ChatGPT 2 years ago, Large Language Models (LLMs) have raised a lot of attention, and a lot of different implementations have been developed (e.g. Copilot, LLAMA, GROC, DeepSeek). Digital Solution providers are using these LLMs to build new solutions for small-scale producers, but other innovations are also available in providing policy advice by summarising a lot of information quickly. With the potential of LLMs and GenAI becoming widely available, it is timely to investigate their potential for agricultural applications.

The following applications of LLMs were presented in the Webinar:

Digital Green: Empowering Farmers Through Farmer.Chat

Jona Repishti presented Farmer.Chat , an AI-enabled multilingual chatbot currently used by 165,000 farmers across India, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Kenya. Built for low-literacy users, it supports voice, text, and image inputs, delivering location- and season-specific advice. Early results are promising. Over 30% of users in Kenya report practice adoption, and many cite improved confidence and time savings.

Digital Green’s vision? Reducing advisory costs up to $0.35 per user (compared to $35/farmer by extension workers) while enabling peer learning, personalised nudges, and integrating marketplace access—all grounded in responsible AI development through human-in-the-loop evaluation and public datasets on Hugging Face.

Ubuntoo: Enhancing Food Safety through Collective Intelligence

Peter Schelstraete showcased the Food Safety for Africa project, combining AI-driven knowledge mining with curated expert input. By building a multilingual, contextual knowledge base—including tacit insights in local languages, Ubuntoo aims to close the digital divide between large and small farms.

Using retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) over a highly curated dataset, Ubuntoo’s platform eliminates hallucinations and offers reliable insights for researchers and, eventually, policymakers and informal market actors. They're also exploring AI agents to access multiple data sources, pushing the frontier of intelligent food safety systems.

Kissan AI: Scalable Voice-Based Copilots and Domain-Specific LLMs

Pratik Desai took us into the startup world, where Kissan AI has developed multilingual, voice-first copilot systems designed for farmers with limited digital literacy. Their innovations include:

Vertical-specific LLMs trained on over 1.6 million data points.
A market chatbot that provides dynamic insights on local crop prices.
A knowledge graph-based system that reduces hallucinations.
An enterprise copilot model used by Fortune 500 AgriTech firms.

Kissan AI is also building climate-resilient agriculture models and contributing to the open-source Agri Benchmark consortium alongside Bayer and UIUC.

FAO: Scaling AI Through Ethics and Digital Public Goods

Henry van Burgsteden from the Office of Innovation in FAO emphasised the organisation's commitment to ethical AI, data equity, and digital public infrastructure. Through initiatives like AgriLLM and partnerships with Digital Green, they aim to democratise GenAI for farmers and extension agents while advocating for transparency and inclusion.

FAO’s road map includes:

Supporting digital advisory services and early warning systems.
Empowering farmers through public datasets.
Investing in dialogues, challenges and roadmaps via events like Reboot the Earth and the Digital Agriculture and AI Innovation Dialogue.

Digital Agri Hub: From Static Reports to Live Intelligence

Inder Kumar demonstrated the Hub’s latest innovation: Agri AI Chat, a chatbot that synthesises real-time data and 50+ curated knowledge products. Using RAG, LLMs, and prompt engineering, the assistant provides up-to-date insights to D4Ag stakeholders.

What sets it apart? A human-centred approach, integrated APIs from the Digital Agri Hub dashboard, and rigorous prompt testing to minimise hallucination. It’s a public good designed for transparency, accessibility, and global reach for market and business intelligence on the state of the digital agriculture sector.

Key Takeaways

GenAI is already powering real tools: Generative AI is being actively used in LMIC agriculture. Tools like chatbots, voice assistants, and context-specific advisory platforms support farmers and agribusinesses. These technologies enhance access to knowledge, reduce advisory costs, and adapt to local needs, demonstrating real-world potential for scalable, data-driven agricultural innovation.
Bias and hallucinations are not just bugs: AI hallucinations reveal underlying data or model gaps. Rather than ignoring them, organisations use expert reviews, domain-specific training, and red-teaming (intentional security testing of models) to improve outputs. These methods ensure safer, more accurate responses, especially where incorrect advice could harm crops, livestock, or farmer livelihoods.
Context and inclusion matter: AI tools must reflect LMIC realities, including local languages, cultural norms, and digital access limitations. Inclusive design, user trust, and incorporation of indigenous knowledge are essential for effectiveness. Without this, GenAI risks excluding the very populations it aims to support in agricultural transformation.
We need public infrastructure and shared benchmarks: Scaling GenAI in agriculture requires open, interoperable systems. Initiatives like AgriLLM and AgriBenchmark promote shared data standards and ethical AI use. Public infrastructure and digital public goods enable inclusive innovation, reduce duplication, and ensure LMIC stakeholders can develop, adapt, and benefit from AI equitably.

A call to action: Join the Next Webinar!

Webinar: Exploring the Potential of GenAI in Regenerative Agriculture Design
Date: April 22, 2025

In this second webinar in the series, we will explore how GenAI can support regenerative agriculture by addressing design complexity, data quality, indigenous knowledge, and collaboration frameworks. Whether you’re an AI developer, AgriTech innovator, or sustainability expert, this is your chance to co-create the future of inclusive, ethical, and regenerative AI in agriculture.