Updated August 2026 to reflect current developments in digital agriculture, agritech, artificial intelligence, climate resilience and smallholder farming across Africa.
Digital agriculture is moving from a collection of mobile applications into a broader infrastructure layer for African farming. Mobile advisory services, digital payments, satellite data, artificial intelligence, mechanisation platforms and online marketplaces are increasingly being used to address persistent problems including low productivity, limited access to finance, weak market links and climate risk.
The shift matters because agriculture remains central to employment, food security and rural incomes across Africa. In March 2026, the World Bank noted that agriculture accounts for around 52% of Africa’s workforce, while a new regional programme was designed to expand climate-smart technologies, digital advisory platforms and related innovations to more than 1.5 million farmers and food-system actors. [1]
The opportunity is significant, but technology alone is not a solution. Connectivity, affordability, digital skills, access to finance and the ability of platforms to deliver measurable value to farmers remain critical to adoption.
What Is Digital Agriculture?
Digital agriculture refers to the use of digital tools, data and communication networks to improve decisions and operations across agricultural value chains.
Today, that can include:
- mobile agricultural advisory services;
- weather and climate information;
- digital payments and financial services;
- artificial intelligence;
- satellite and geospatial data;
- digital marketplaces;
- farm management software;
- digital input-distribution systems;
- mechanisation platforms;
- traceability systems;
- smart irrigation and connected equipment.
The World Bank describes digital agriculture as a combination of tools that can help farmers access advice, weather forecasts, payments, finance and markets, particularly through mobile devices and shared platforms. [2]
How Digital Agriculture Has Changed Since 2019
When this article was first published in 2019, much of Africa’s agritech discussion centred on SMS services, mobile marketplaces and digital crowdfunding platforms.
Those models helped establish the foundations of the sector, but the technology landscape has since expanded considerably.
By 2026, the focus increasingly includes artificial intelligence, geospatial intelligence, digital climate services, automated credit assessment, smart agricultural insurance, digitally managed input programmes and platforms integrating several services rather than solving a single problem.
FAO’s Digital Agriculture and AI Innovation Roadmap, published at the end of 2025, reflects this shift. It calls for digital agriculture to move beyond fragmented pilot projects toward more coordinated systems that can be reused, adapted and scaled. [3]
Artificial Intelligence Enters African Agriculture
Artificial intelligence is becoming one of the most important emerging technologies in agriculture.
Potential applications include:
- crop and disease diagnosis;
- weather and planting recommendations;
- yield forecasting;
- credit and insurance assessment;
- soil and farm analysis;
- market-price intelligence;
- automated agricultural advisory services;
- supply-chain planning.
The World Bank argues that AI can potentially improve agricultural production, climate resilience and decision-making for smallholder farmers in low- and middle-income countries. However, it also stresses that successful deployment requires investment in infrastructure, governance, skills, inclusion and responsible data use. [4]
This distinction is important. AI can make agricultural services more scalable, but inaccurate recommendations, weak local data or systems that farmers cannot afford may produce little practical benefit.
Digital Platforms Are Already Reaching Farmers at Scale
Evidence from recent World Bank-supported projects suggests that digital agriculture is moving beyond experimental applications.
In Côte d’Ivoire, the e-Agriculture Project helped more than 400,000 people working in selected agricultural value chains gain improved access to markets between 2018 and 2023. The project also connected more than 221,000 rural residents to the internet and contributed to the creation of more than 43,000 mobile-money accounts. [5]
In Benin, digital agricultural platforms reached more than 103,000 users through services covering crop advice, access to farm machinery and farm monitoring using geospatial data. [5]
These examples illustrate why digital transformation increasingly involves more than creating an app. Connectivity, payments, farmer identification, logistics and access to equipment may all have to work together.
Cameroon: Digital Tools, E-Vouchers and Agritech Startups
Cameroon provides a more recent example of this integrated approach.
The World Bank-supported Acceleration of the Digital Transformation of Cameroon Project, known as PATNUC, is combining digital infrastructure with agritech adoption.
By June 2026, an e-voucher system under the programme was designed to give 35,000 smallholder farmers access to improved seeds and fertilisers, while digital services provide information about soil conditions and farming decisions. [6]
The programme also supports an Agritech Innovation Challenge that connects technology startups with farmer organisations so solutions can be tested under real farming conditions.
This model addresses one of the weaknesses historically seen in agritech: technologies designed without sufficient involvement from the farmers expected to use them.
Mobile Technology Still Matters
The rise of AI and satellite-based agriculture does not mean simpler technologies have become irrelevant.
For many smallholder farmers, particularly in areas with limited broadband access, SMS, voice services, mobile money and basic smartphones remain the most practical digital tools.
The underlying principle that shaped African agritech in the 2010s therefore remains important: solutions need to work with the devices and connectivity farmers actually have.
Offline functionality, local languages and low-cost interfaces can be more valuable than technologically sophisticated systems that farmers cannot reliably access.
myAgro: Digital Savings and Climate-Smart Farming
One of the organisations discussed in the original 2019 article remains active and provides a useful example of how an early mobile model has evolved.
myAgro operates in Mali and Senegal and uses digital systems to help smallholder farmers obtain agricultural inputs and training.
According to myAgro’s 2026 reporting, the organisation served nearly 250,000 farmers in Mali and Senegal in 2025, of whom 63% were women. [7]
The organisation reported that 200,811 farmers planted using improved seeds, fertiliser and climate-smart training during 2025, cultivating 24,080 hectares and producing more than 40,000 metric tons of food. [7]
myAgro also reports using control groups to measure outcomes. Its 2025 assessment found that participating farmers produced more food and generated higher net income than comparison farmers, although these figures should be understood as results reported by myAgro from its own impact-measurement programme. [7]
Hello Tractor: Digital Mechanisation at Scale
Hello Tractor is another example from the original article that has continued to expand.
The company uses digital technology to organise demand for agricultural machinery, connect farmers with tractor services and monitor equipment.
Hello Tractor says its network has served more than 2.5 million farmers and operates through customers in numerous African countries, with field operations in markets including Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Ethiopia. [8]
Its model helps address a structural problem in African agriculture: many smallholders cannot justify purchasing expensive machinery individually, while fragmented demand can make commercial tractor services difficult to organise.
Digital scheduling, equipment tracking and aggregated farmer demand can make mechanisation-as-a-service more commercially viable.
Mechanisation Without Tractor Ownership
The significance of platforms such as Hello Tractor is that they shift the economic model from ownership toward access.
A smallholder farmer may only require machinery for a limited number of days each season. Digital booking and logistics systems can therefore allow equipment to serve multiple farms, potentially increasing utilisation while lowering the capital barrier for individual farmers.
Hello Tractor has also expanded into pay-as-you-go equipment financing and an online marketplace for agricultural machinery, implements and spare parts. [8][9]
ThriveAgric: From Digital Finance to Integrated Farmer Services
Nigeria-based ThriveAgric, another company included in the original article, has also evolved significantly.
Rather than operating simply as a platform through which outside investors finance individual farms, ThriveAgric now describes its model as an integrated system combining farmer onboarding, farm mapping, inputs, finance, advisory services, field monitoring, storage and access to markets. [10]
The company reports more than 1.2 million farmers onboarded and operations across Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. [10][11]
Its 2025 impact report states that it worked with more than 1.2 million smallholder farmers across the five countries and brought more than 300,000 hectares under regenerative cultivation. These are company-reported figures. [11]
The evolution of ThriveAgric illustrates a broader trend in African agritech: the move from isolated digital services toward platforms that integrate finance, data, production support, logistics and market access.
Farmerline and Digital Agricultural Infrastructure
Ghana-based Farmerline provides another example of how agritech companies are increasingly building infrastructure for entire agricultural value chains rather than providing a single farmer-facing application.
Farmerline’s Mergdata platform connects farmers and other participants across agricultural supply chains and can operate in local languages and in offline mode, an important capability in areas with weak connectivity. [12]
The company combines technology with input financing, market access and supply-chain services.
This type of model is increasingly relevant because digitising agriculture requires information to move between farmers, input suppliers, buyers, financiers and logistics providers.
Digital Finance Remains Central
Limited access to finance remains one of the largest constraints facing smallholder farmers.
Traditional financial institutions may struggle to assess borrowers who lack formal credit histories, conventional collateral or reliable financial records.
Digital agriculture can help build alternative data trails through farm registration, production histories, geolocation, transactions and crop information.
FAO noted in 2026 that artificial intelligence may also have a role in expanding financial inclusion for rural and agricultural communities, although responsible deployment is essential because automated credit systems can also reproduce bias or exclude farmers whose data are incomplete. [3]
Digital Agricultural Insurance
Digitalisation is also changing agricultural insurance.
Satellite and weather data can support index-based insurance products that trigger payments when rainfall or other measurable conditions reach predetermined thresholds.
The World Bank reported in June 2026 that more than 835,000 farmers and livestock producers had gained index-based agricultural insurance coverage against drought and rainfall shocks through programmes in West Africa during 2025. [13]
FAO nevertheless notes that digital agricultural insurance remains relatively underdeveloped in many low- and middle-income countries, with scaled solutions concentrated in markets where digital financial services are already comparatively advanced. [3]
Climate Information Becomes a Core Digital Service
Climate volatility increases the value of accurate and timely agricultural information.
Farmers increasingly need location-specific information on rainfall, drought risk, planting dates and crop conditions rather than relying entirely on historical seasonal patterns.
In March 2026, the World Bank approved a US$46 million regional programme to expand climate-smart agricultural innovations in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Senegal and Zambia. [1]
The programme includes digital climate advisory platforms, drought-tolerant crop varieties and solar-powered irrigation, and is expected to reach more than 1.5 million farmers and other food-system participants. [1]
Satellite Data and Remote Sensing
Satellite imagery and geospatial data are also becoming more accessible to African agricultural systems.
These technologies can support:
- field mapping;
- crop monitoring;
- soil and vegetation analysis;
- drought assessment;
- insurance verification;
- yield estimation;
- targeting of inputs and agricultural support.
The Benin digital agriculture programme supported by the World Bank is one example where geospatial data have been incorporated into farm monitoring and decision-making. [5]
Digital Marketplaces and Better Market Access
Improving yields is only part of the productivity challenge.
Farmers also need reliable buyers, transparent prices, transport and efficient payment systems.
Digital marketplaces can help connect producers with buyers and reduce information gaps, although platforms still depend on physical logistics and trustworthy commercial relationships.
The World Bank’s experience in Côte d’Ivoire demonstrates the potential scale. Its Agristore platform was part of a programme that improved market access for more than 400,000 participants in agricultural value chains. [5]
From Apps to Digital Agricultural Ecosystems
The central lesson from the evolution of African agritech is that individual applications rarely solve agricultural productivity problems on their own.
A farmer may receive excellent planting advice but still lack finance to buy seed. Another may produce a larger crop but lack storage or a buyer. A digital marketplace may attract buyers but fail if roads and logistics are inadequate.
The strongest emerging models therefore combine several elements:
- farmer identification and data;
- agricultural advice;
- input access;
- finance and insurance;
- mechanisation;
- market access;
- payments;
- logistics;
- climate information.
Barriers to Digital Agriculture in Africa
Despite strong potential, digital agriculture still faces significant constraints.
Connectivity
Rural connectivity remains uneven. Services that require permanent high-speed internet access may therefore exclude precisely the farmers they are intended to support.
Affordability
Smartphones, data subscriptions, sensors and precision-agriculture equipment can be expensive relative to smallholder incomes.
Digital Literacy
Farmers must understand how to use digital services and interpret the information they receive.
Language and Localisation
Agricultural advice needs to reflect local crops, farming systems, languages and climatic conditions.
Data Quality
AI, credit scoring and precision agriculture depend on reliable data. Incomplete or inaccurate information can undermine recommendations and financial decisions.
Trust
Farmers need confidence that platforms will protect their data, fulfil payments and provide useful services.
Commercial Sustainability
Agritech companies also need viable business models. A platform that depends permanently on subsidised pilot funding may struggle to achieve long-term scale.
The Risk of a Digital Divide
Digital transformation can improve inclusion, but it can also create new inequalities.
Better-connected commercial farms may benefit earlier than remote or lower-income smallholders. Women can also face unequal access to phones, finance, land and digital skills.
The World Bank therefore emphasises that digital agricultural systems need to be designed in ways that reduce barriers for small producers rather than simply making already productive farms more efficient. [2]
What Happened to the Early Agritech Models?
The original 2019 version of this article documented a large number of emerging African agricultural platforms.
Some have grown and evolved considerably, including myAgro, Hello Tractor and ThriveAgric. Others have changed business models, become less visible or no longer have enough current public information to justify presenting them as leading active platforms in 2026.
This is normal in an early-stage technology sector. Startups merge, pivot, close, change markets or discover that a model that works in a pilot is difficult to scale commercially.
For Africa’s agricultural transformation, the important question is therefore not how many agritech applications are launched, but how many can demonstrate sustained farmer adoption and measurable economic value.
What Will Define the Next Phase of African Agritech?
The next phase is likely to be shaped by convergence rather than a single breakthrough technology.
AI can improve advice, but it requires local agricultural data. Satellite imagery can improve monitoring, but farmers still need access to inputs. Digital credit can finance production, but lenders require reliable risk information. Online marketplaces can expand demand, but logistics must deliver the product.
The most important platforms may therefore be those that connect these pieces into functioning agricultural ecosystems.
Outlook
Digital technology cannot by itself solve Africa’s agricultural productivity and food-security challenges.
Roads, irrigation, electricity, storage, agricultural research, finance, land governance and functioning markets remain essential.
But digital systems can make these resources more accessible and efficient by improving information, coordinating demand, reducing transaction costs and connecting farmers to services that were previously difficult to reach.
The strongest evidence from Africa increasingly points toward integrated solutions rather than technology for its own sake.
For farmers, the test of digital agriculture is ultimately practical: does it help them grow more efficiently, reduce risk, access finance, find better markets and earn more sustainable incomes?
For investors and policymakers, the challenge is to build digital agricultural systems capable of delivering those benefits at scale while remaining affordable, inclusive and commercially sustainable.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is digital agriculture in Africa?
Digital agriculture uses mobile services, data, digital payments, artificial intelligence, satellite information, online marketplaces and other technologies to improve farming decisions and agricultural value chains.
How can technology improve farm productivity?
Technology can improve access to agricultural advice, weather information, finance, insurance, machinery, inputs and markets. It can also help farmers monitor crops and make better decisions about production.
How is AI being used in African agriculture?
Potential uses include crop diagnosis, weather and planting advice, yield forecasting, credit assessment, market intelligence and automated agricultural advisory services. Effective use depends on reliable local data and appropriate governance. [4]
Which African agritech companies are still active?
Examples with active operations and current public information include Hello Tractor, ThriveAgric, Farmerline and myAgro. Their models cover areas including mechanisation, farmer finance, agricultural data, market access and input provision.
What are the main barriers to digital agriculture?
Key barriers include rural connectivity, affordability, digital literacy, language, data quality, farmer trust and the commercial sustainability of agritech platforms.
Sources and Information
[1] World Bank. Scaling Innovation to Boost Food Systems and Support Job Creation, 26 March 2026.
World Bank — agricultural innovation and food systems
[2] World Bank. AgriConnect — Digital Agriculture and Smallholder Farming.
World Bank — digital agriculture explained
[3] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. e-Agriculture publications and Digital Agriculture and AI Innovation Roadmap.
FAO — digital agriculture publications
[4] World Bank. Harnessing Artificial Intelligence for Agricultural Transformation.
World Bank — AI for agricultural transformation
[5] World Bank. From Fields to Markets: The Role of Digital Platforms in West Africa’s Agricultural Success, 4 March 2025.
World Bank — digital platforms in West African agriculture
[6] World Bank. Connected Farmers, Better Harvests: How Cameroon’s Agritech Innovators Are Transforming Agriculture, 25 June 2026.
World Bank — Cameroon agritech transformation
[7] myAgro. Q1 2026 Impact Report, including 2025 results in Mali and Senegal.
myAgro — 2026 impact report
[8] Hello Tractor. Company operations and farmer network.
Hello Tractor — Africa operations
[9] Hello Tractor. Agricultural equipment marketplace and pay-as-you-go financing.
Hello Tractor Marketplace
[10] ThriveAgric. Farmer services, technology and agricultural value-chain model.
ThriveAgric
[11] ThriveAgric. 2025 Impact Report summary, published July 2026.
ThriveAgric — 2025 impact report
[12] Farmerline. Digital agricultural services and Mergdata platform.
Farmerline
[13] World Bank. Agricultural Transformation, Food Security and Jobs in West Africa, 23 June 2026.
World Bank — West Africa agricultural transformation
Originally published in 2019 based on an article by Johan Burger. Updated and substantially revised by AfricaBusiness.com in August 2026.