Africa’s growing investment in digital agriculture is facing a sustainability test as tightening donor funding raises questions about who will finance the technologies connecting millions of smallholder farmers to markets, financial services and agricultural information.
After years of development programmes supporting mobile-based farming services, digital financial inclusion and agricultural innovations, stakeholders are increasingly being challenged to demonstrate that these solutions can survive beyond the funding cycles that helped establish them.
The challenge took centre stage at the 10th AgriFin Learning Event in Nairobi, where agricultural technology innovators, financial institutions, policymakers and development partners called for a shift from short-term donor-funded projects towards sustainable financing models capable of keeping digital services accessible to farmers.
The discussions come against a backdrop of mounting pressure on development finance to countries in the Global South, threatening the continuity of agricultural programmes that depend heavily on external support.
For millions of smallholder farmers, the implications extend beyond the technology sector. Digital platforms increasingly provide access to weather information, agricultural advice, financial services and market opportunities that can influence production decisions and household incomes.
Yet, the question confronting the sector is whether these services can remain available and affordable when the programmes financing their development come to an end.
At the Nairobi meeting, convened by Prosper Global AgriFin, formerly Mercy Corps AgriFin, participants argued that the next phase of digital agriculture must prioritise stronger public-private partnerships, evidence-led investment and business models that place farmers at the centre of service delivery.
Melaku Yirga, Vice President for Africa at Prosper Global, said the sector needed to move beyond testing innovations towards building systems capable of sustaining and expanding solutions that have demonstrated value.
“We’ve spent years testing ideas, building partnerships and learning what works. So the real question now is: how do we turn all of that into systems that can actually last and scale?” he said.
Since its establishment in 2012, AgriFin has supported the development of digital solutions intended to improve smallholder farmers’ access to agricultural information and financial services, particularly through mobile technology.
Its work expanded through partnerships and funding from organisations including the Mastercard Foundation, Gates Foundation and Bayer Foundation, supporting digital agriculture initiatives across several African markets.
A subsequent programme targeting five million smallholder farmers across Kenya, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda exceeded its target, reaching more than 8.5 million farmers through digital information services. Women accounted for 41 per cent of those reached.
However, the scale of that achievement also raises a difficult question for the industry: how will these services continue reaching farmers when the financial support behind their expansion becomes less certain?
Sieka Gatabaki, Programme Director at Prosper Global AgriFin, said digital technology could help reduce some of the longstanding barriers that make smallholder agriculture difficult to finance and serve.
Farmers operating in fragmented rural markets often face limited infrastructure, unpredictable weather conditions and inadequate access to financial services, increasing the perceived risks for lenders and investors.
Digital platforms can help bridge some of these gaps by providing agricultural information, improving access to mobile financial services and helping farmers make more informed decisions about production and investment.
Gatabaki pointed to the potential of artificial intelligence in improving access to weather information, agricultural practices and different sources of capital.
However, he emphasised that technology adoption must remain central to the sector’s expansion, with farmers encouraged to use digital tools that can broaden their economic opportunities.
The challenge is particularly significant in rural communities where access to reliable connectivity, digital literacy and affordable services remains uneven.
Even when platforms are available, their usefulness depends on whether farmers can access them consistently, understand the information provided and translate it into practical decisions.
This means that developing more sophisticated technologies will not necessarily produce better agricultural outcomes unless the systems supporting their delivery are equally strengthened.
Jasmina Lipovic, Global Finance Operations and Compliance Director at Prosper Global AgriFin, said the end of a programme should not mean the disappearance of the services and partnerships established through it.
“This is a transition, not an endpoint,” she said.
Lipovic explained that the organisation had invested in relationships with banks, agribusinesses and technology companies to help ensure that services could continue reaching farmers beyond the initial funding period.
The organisation is now seeking to strengthen strategic partnerships and diversify its programming and financing sources as development funding becomes more constrained.
The shift reflects a wider challenge facing development organisations: moving successful interventions from grant-dependent models towards arrangements in which governments, financial institutions and private companies have a stronger incentive to sustain them.
Elias Nure, Global Digital Climate Smart Agriculture Director at Prosper Global AgriFin, emphasised the importance of public-private partnerships in connecting farmers to government resources, information and services.
Such partnerships could help reduce duplication, strengthen existing delivery networks and make agricultural services more accessible to communities that are often difficult to reach through conventional systems.
For stakeholders, the opportunity lies in aligning public resources with private investment and existing relationships within farming communities rather than treating every new innovation as an independent project.
Sheena Raikundalia, an innovation ecosystem leader, also challenged participants to reconsider how agricultural technology investments are structured.
Her presentation highlighted the need to connect finance, infrastructure, technology, markets, farmers and supporting institutions so that innovations become part of functioning agricultural systems rather than isolated interventions.
She also cautioned against introducing emerging technologies simply because they are available, arguing that artificial intelligence and other digital tools must respond to actual problems experienced by farmers.
The emphasis on evidence was another central theme of the discussions.
Stefan Wilhelm, Director of Social Innovation and Head of Latin America and Africa at the Bayer Foundation, challenged stakeholders to examine the evidence behind agricultural innovations before deciding where resources should be directed.
“So, what does the evidence tell us about where we should go next?” he asked.
His remarks highlighted the need to distinguish between solutions that generate impressive activity figures and those that produce measurable improvements in farmers’ livelihoods.
This distinction becomes particularly important when funding is limited and development partners must prioritise investments capable of delivering lasting results.
In a video message, Amath Pathe Sene, Managing Director of the Africa Food Systems Forum, similarly questioned whether digital agriculture solutions could remain viable after their initial funding cycles.
He highlighted the potential of digital tools, including artificial intelligence, to improve farmers’ access to markets, credit, weather information and agricultural practices when effectively deployed.
The sustainability question is becoming more urgent as climate-related shocks, pests, diseases, rising input costs and volatile agricultural markets continue to expose smallholder farmers to economic uncertainty.
Reliable weather information and timely agricultural advice can help farmers anticipate changing conditions, while accessible financial products can provide opportunities to manage production risks.
However, these services require consistent investment in infrastructure, technology and local delivery networks.
Participants at the Nairobi forum therefore called for greater mobilisation of domestic resources, policy and regulatory incentives to encourage private-sector participation, and blended financing arrangements that combine different sources of capital.
Such approaches could help reduce dependence on external development funding while creating stronger incentives for commercial actors to invest in agricultural services.
The meeting, held under the theme *Leveraging Evidence for Connected, Scalable and Inclusive Digital Agriculture*, brought together stakeholders to examine how technology, finance and market systems could work together to improve agricultural productivity and resilience.
As Africa’s digital agriculture sector enters its next phase, the measure of success may increasingly depend on what happens after donor-funded programmes close.
For the smallholder farmers who rely on these services, the priority is not simply how many digital platforms are developed or how many people are registered on them, but whether the information, financing and market connections they provide remain available when farmers need them most.
The challenge facing Africa is therefore no longer just how to digitise agriculture, but how to finance and sustain the transformation without leaving smallholder farmers dependent on projects that may not last.
