Africa’s digital agriculture revolution begins now

By Abdelmonem Fawzi

Magine a smallholder farmer in rural Kenya waking up to a simple text message in Kiswahili: the temperature in her chicken house is rising, ventilation has automatically adjusted, and the feed silo will be empty by tomorrow evening.
With one tap she orders a delivery, checks today’s market prices in Nairobi, and receives tailored advice on when to plant her next maize crop based on weather forecasts and soil data from a nearby sensor.
This is not science fiction. This is digital agriculture, and it is already transforming lives across Africa.
From precision farming and drone monitoring to IoT devices that control livestock housing and mobile platforms that slash post-harvest losses, digital tools are helping farmers of every scale produce more with less, adapt to climate change, and earn higher incomes.
Secure digital land registries are replacing chaotic paper systems, bringing transparency, reducing corruption, unlocking credit, and making land markets work for ordinary people instead of only the powerful.
That is why the African Union Commission’s Department of Agriculture, Rural Development, Blue Economy and Sustainable Environment is hosting the Inaugural Digital Agriculture Conference next month at the AU Headquarters in Addis Ababa.
This landmark gathering is a direct call to action for innovators, institutions, private companies, start-ups, universities, NGOs, farmer organisations, youth and women’s groups across the continent and beyond to come together and shape the future of African food systems.
The conference will showcase scalable, climate-smart solutions designed first and foremost for smallholder farmers.
It will demonstrate cutting-edge technologies, such as precision agriculture, IoT sensors, drones, and AI-powered advisory services delivered in local languages.
It will explore digital marketplaces that connect farmers straight to buyers, cutting out middlemen and reducing the enormous losses that occur between harvest and table.
It will examine how early-warning systems and risk-management tools can help farmers withstand droughts, floods and pests in an era of worsening climate shocks.
Just as importantly, the event will tackle the harder questions: what policy frameworks, regulations and incentives are needed to accelerate adoption? How do we protect farmer data privacy while unlocking its power for better decisions? How do we make sure the benefits reach women and young people who are the future of African farming?
Recent developments show the possible. The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and Google have just launched the Regional Data Commons for Africa, an ambitious initiative backed by Google.org’s technology and a $750,000 investment.
By creating an interoperable, AI-ready public data infrastructure and modernising national statistical offices, the project will give policymakers and farmers alike access to timely, reliable evidence.
It forms part of Google’s broader $2.25 million commitment to strengthen Africa’s data ecosystem for development.
Yet, everyone agrees that technology alone will not feed the continent. Reliable internet remains scarce in rural areas, devices and data plans are often too expensive, and many farmers have never been trained to use digital tools.
Expanding 4G networks and data centres is essential, but so is targeted training for farmers and extension workers in languages they actually speak.
Public-private partnerships must mobilise investment and deliver hands-on learning in the field. Simple, affordable entry-level solutions, such as basic variable-rate sprayers or low-cost soil sensors, can open the door for smallholders before they move to more advanced systems.
Above all, every app, service and device must be designed with African realities in mind: local crops, local weather patterns, local languages, and the central role of women and youth in farming.
When a young woman in northern Ghana can receive planting advice in Dagbani on a basic feature phone, or a co-operative in Ethiopia can track its grain in real time using an Amharic interface, adoption soars.
The African Union conference is where these ideas will meet, where partnerships will be forged, and where the most promising innovations will find the support they need to scale.
Whether you are building block-chain land records, low-cost livestock monitors, market-linkage platforms, or climate-resilience tools, your work belongs at this table.
Africa’s farms are ready to go digital. The question is no longer whether the transformation will happen, but who will lead it, and whether it will truly leave no farmer behind.