The digital divide in African agriculture is threatening to prevent millions of smallholder farmers from benefiting from advances in artificial intelligence and other agricultural technologies, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The FAO estimates that fewer than 10% of African farmers currently have access to digital agricultural services, despite the growing use of ...

By Desry Lesele, Senior Manager for Agribusiness Client Value Propositions at Nedbank Commercial Banking. For decades, farming has been built around physical things you can see and touch: land, machinery, storage systems, and long-standing relationships with suppliers and buyers. Those things still matter, but another layer is increasingly being added to the mix: digital platforms ...

Africa’s agriculture sector holds enormous promise as an engine for economic transformation, yet recent performance falls short of that potential. Despite the continent’s vast arable land and the central role farming plays in millions of livelihoods, agricultural contribution to GDP growth has stagnated. Weather extremes have played a part, but deeper issues — limited investment ...

Editor’s note:This viewpoint is part of Chapter 5 of Foresight Africa 2025-2030, a report with cutting-edge insights and actionable strategies for Africa’s inclusive and sustainable development in the run-up to 2030. Read the full chapter on AI and emerging technologies. Several examples of AI applications in agriculture illustrate how AI is already making a tangible impact on ...

NAIROBI, KENYA — More than 400 delegates and organizations working in Africa’s farming sector are in Nairobi, Kenya, this week to discuss how digital agriculture can improve the lives of farmers and the continent’s food system. Tech innovators discussed the need for increased funding, especially for women. In past decades, African farmers have struggled to ...

New technology gives the agricultural industry an opportunity to improve productivity. But only if it can share and use the data. By 2050, the global population is expected to increase by almost 40% to 9.6 billion people. In order to feed this drastically increasing population, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) predicts that the ...