Scaling up digital agriculture solutions.

48 million households in Sub-Saharan Africa depend on agriculture for their livelihood. The agricultural sector is the backbone of the economy, contributing approximately 33 percent of Kenya's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The agriculture sector employs more than 40 percent of the total population and 70 percent of the rural population. In Kenya, there are 7.5 million small-holder farmers. There are numerous service providers that seek to solve problems in food and agriculture using digital technologies. These providers range from small start-ups to large companies that mainly offer advice, finance and market linkage.

But scaling up these solutions remains a challenge. A study on digital agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa showed that only a few service providers managed to register more than one million users. In Kenya, it’s estimated that only 20% to 30% of farmers use a digital agricultural solution.

Supplying inputs, organizing farmers and transporting outputs will always require physical, on-the-ground activities. Digital technology, however, has opened up new ways of engaging with smallholder farmers at radically lower cost. New business models enable more efficient aggregation and purchasing of farmer output, and enterprises that previously could not profitably source from smallholder farmers can finally do so. Smartphone penetration in sub-Saharan Africa has been steadily increasing, with twice as many Africans expected to own a smartphone in 2025 as did in 2014. Innovations based on digital technology are also giving smallholder farmers much easier access to financing and information.