See where World Bank is leading farmers in Nigeria, other African countries

Cost per farmer for delivering agric extension advice using traditional method (physical contact between farmer and extension services provider) is N52,000, video-based is N5,200, while AI Chatbot costs N520 only.

It is now a new day in agriculture sector globally as technology begins to take center space.

It has become the norm in the industrialized world, but like in every area of life, Africa (actually sub-Sahara) is still struggling to know what is happening not to talk about meeting up with the trend.

In agriculture industry all over the world extension services has been the strategy for reaching out to farmers with knowledge and information to help their productivity and profitability.

The World Bank has long recognized the critical importance of agricultural extension services – ranging from training and data to technology transfer – which make up the second-largest share of its agriculture portfolio.

Yet farmers especially those in Nigeria and other sub-Sahara African countries, have often been slow to adopt the very methods and tools these services are designed to deliver—limiting their own productivity and profitability.

That’s in large part because they depend on limited numbers of extension agents: the field advisors responsible for providing them with data, training and advice. Most countries, Nigeria inclusive, have just one extension agent for every 1,000 to 2,000 farmers.

To address this shortcoming, the World Bank is promoting use of technology to deliver the required knowledge and information to farmers even in the remotest locations.

Digital agriculture has long held the promise of filling the agric extension services gap through bundled services that integrate weather forecasts, market prices, payments, and agronomic advice. According to the World Bank, in spite of the $1.5 billion invested in mobile phones and other technologies over the past decade, the uptake remains low.

In Nigeria and many Sub-Saharan African countries, for example, fewer than 10 percent of all farmers take advantage of digital agricultural technology.

The AI advisory revolution

The World Bank has said that its Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) is poised to overcome these persistent barriers. And indeed, the evidence from early projects is compelling:

Digital Green, a technology non-profit, has created an AI-powered chatbot that has reached 460,000 farmers and extension workers across five countries, supporting 40 crops in six languages. Innovative Solutions for Decision Agriculture (iSDA) has produced a similar tool called Virtual Agronomist serving over 350,000 plots across seven African countries via WhatsApp, driving profit gains up to 4.7 times, yield increases of 1.6 times, and engagement above 60 percent.

Kisan e-Mitra AI Chatbot, a voice-based, AI-powered chatbot launched by the Government of India, has resolved over 8.2 million queries from farmers in multiple local languages regarding direct benefit transfer, a government program that sends subsidies and welfare benefits directly into citizens’ bank accounts.

What makes these AI advisory systems uniquely effective?

Generative AI directly addresses challenges of digital literacy, language limitations, and relevance of information by offering farmers voice-based interfaces in the languages they use every day.

These systems, according to the World Bank, help them weigh different options, offer visual recognition to diagnose crop diseases, and provide highly relevant personalized advice.

The World Bank stated that ‘‘Hybrid tools that blend AI with human advice not only boosts impact but slash costs, bringing extension down from around $5 per farmer each year to under $1’’.

A recent World Bank report noted that Cost per farmer for delivering agric extension advice using traditional method (physical contact between farmer and extension services provider) is N52,000, video-based is N5,200, while AI Chatbot costs N520 only.

This dramatic drop is driven by a decline in AI costs – by some estimates down 240-fold in just 18 months. Today, delivering services costs about $1.50 per farmer per year, mainly for indirect expenses such as registration and adoption.

This efficiency gain is enabling transformative scale. For example, Kenya’s digital climate advisories now serve 4.8 million farmers – 62 percent of the total – with coverage expected to rise to 91 percent, or 7.4 million, by 2030.

Beyond the advice they provide, such systems generate valuable market intelligence by recording farmers’ questions on planting, pests, and prices, creating demand-driven insights that also benefit providers, suppliers, and researchers.

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