In early 2024, we launched Virtual Agronomist with a bold question: what if every farmer could have a personalised, season-long advisory service in their pocket - no matter where they live, what they grow, or how much land they have?
Just over a year and a half later, more than 250,000 smallholder farmers across seven African countries have used Virtual Agronomist to register and manage over 350,000 plots. And in the year ahead, we are on track to reach half a million farmers.
This rapid uptake underscores the immense demand for timely, tailored advice among Africa’s smallholders. But the real story isn’t just about numbers. It’s about what we are learning as we scale — lessons that will shape how we reach millions more farmers in a responsible, inclusive, and sustainable way.
Lesson 1: Farmers move fast when barriers fall
Across much of Africa, national extension systems play a vital role in supporting farmers. But these services are often stretched thin, with one officer sometimes serving several thousand farmers. It’s a testament to their importance that demand consistently outstrips supply.
Virtual Agronomist helps fill this gap by putting personalised guidance directly into farmers’ and extension agents’ hands via WhatsApp. Farmers can register their fields, receive soil-specific fertiliser plans, scout for pests and monitor harvests – and extension agents or lead farmers can help them — all through a platform they already use every day.
The results have been striking. In Kericho County, Kenya, more than 78% of maize farmers adopted Virtual Agronomist within a single season. Over 4 million farmer messages were exchanged within just a few months of deployment. Word of mouth — not advertising — drove this growth. When farmers see value, adoption spreads fast.
2. Local leadership unlocks scale
Technology alone cannot overcome barriers like limited connectivity, digital literacy, or language. What makes Virtual Agronomist different is its Lead Farmer Model — a community-based approach where trusted farmers guide their neighbours through registration, interpretation, and follow-up.
This approach is proving pivotal. In Uganda, 43% of plots are now registered by farmers who were not directly trained by iSDA, but introduced through farmer-to-farmer referrals.
Just as importantly, local leadership is helping ensure equitable access. Among lead farmers, one in three are women, stepping into visible roles as community champions. Younger farmers have also emerged as digital guides, helping older neighbours navigate the chatbot. Together, these networks are making digital agriculture inclusive — not just accessible, but truly adopted at scale.
3. Advice needs to learn with every season
Virtual Agronomist is not static. Each farmer interaction feeds back into the system, making advice smarter and more relevant over time.
In Bulambuli, Uganda, adoption data from earlier in 2025 tells a powerful story.
Of 7,500 registered plots:
- 98% generated a nutrient management plan
- 65% recorded planting dates
- 69% conducted emergence scouting
- 81% reported harvest data.
This continuous feedback loop allows Virtual Agronomist to refine recommendations season by season. For farmers, it means more precise, timely, and actionable guidance. For our funders and partners, it means a living system that gets better the more it is used.
The impact so far
Initial results are highly encouraging:
- Yield gains of 1.4× to 1.9× compared to traditional farmer practice across maize, rice, sunflower, and sorghum.
- In Uganda, early adopters saw maize yields increase by 66% after a single season.
- In Kenya, coffee farmers like David Bii doubled their harvests and reinvested profits into cows, water tanks, and even children’s education.
“After using Virtual Agronomist, I harvested 5,000 kilos instead of 2,000. I was able to buy a cow and educate my children,” he told us.
And critically, this is happening at a fraction of the cost of traditional extension. The marginal cost of delivery is just $1–$2 per farmer per season. This means governments and NGOs can extend the reach of existing extension services to far more farmers, without overstretching their frontline staff.
Scaling through partnership
Our ambition is bold: to reach 10 million farmers in five years. But we can’t do it alone.
Scaling Virtual Agronomist will require harnessing the power of partnerships:
- Governments to integrate Virtual Agronomist into national extension systems, amplifying reach at national scale for a fraction of the cost.
- NGOs and farmer-facing organisations to bundle advisory with inputs, credit, and insurance, ensuring farmers get holistic support.
- Agribusinesses and cooperatives to embed Virtual Agronomist in supply chains, from coffee to maize, ensuring both productivity and quality gains.
- Researchers and technologists to expand capabilities into pest diagnostics, climate adaptation, and local-language voice delivery.
Virtual Agronomist is not just a product. It is the engine of an open, science-first digital ecosystem, designed to be modular and extensible. By opening up core tools and data through APIs, we invite others to build on our foundation — creating an ecosystem where investment multiplies across the sector.
A call to action
Reaching a quarter of a million farmers is a milestone worth celebrating. But it is also just the beginning. The lessons we are learning now — about adoption, inclusion, and impact — are shaping the blueprint for a new era of agricultural advisory in Africa.
Every farmer reached strengthens food security, builds resilience to climate shocks, and improves livelihoods. But the true multiplier is partnership. With the support of funders, governments, NGOs, and private-sector allies, we can transform agricultural advisory from a chronic bottleneck into a continent-wide public good.
Together, we can ensure that by 2030, tens of millions of African farmers have access to the personalised, science-driven advice they need to thrive.
📖 Explore the full science and impact in our latest whitepaper.
🤝 Partner with us to bring Virtual Agronomist to every farmer who needs it. Get in touch.
