LLM-Powered Digital Advisory Services for Agripreneurs and Smallholders
Summary
This study assesses the impact of AI assistance on smallholder farmers and last-mile agricultural service providers (agripreneurs) in Kenya. The intervention provides access to an AI-powered chatbot via WhatsApp with two types of functionalities:
- Digital advisory: responding to farmer queries on crop-specific agronomy (e.g., fertilizer application rates and timing, soil health management, planting schedules), real-time weather forecasts (e.g., rainfall, temperature, humidity), input selection (e.g., fertilizer types, seed varieties); pest/disease recognition and management; and
- Digital coordination: facilitating farmer–agripreneur coordination by sending notifications and activity summaries based on AI usage.
Information access and supply chain coordination failures are major barriers to adopting good agricultural practices in smallholder farming. Extension services in the Global South often suffer from understaffing as well as physical and information access barriers. Last-mile service providers lack visibility into farmers’ needs for prioritizing input selection and outreach. While prior ICT interventions in smallholder agriculture have generally shown modest impacts, modern AI-powered chatbots with conversational interfaces have received limited attention in this context. Combining a last-mile physical extension and market access program with AI-powered digital assistance may help address some of these limitations, potentially generating two-sided benefits for farmers and agripreneurs
The pilot study will field-test a cluster-randomized design, where the unit of randomization is an agripreneur. Two arms will be compared: a control arm with business as usual, and an “AI coordination” arm in which farmers and agripreneurs access both digital advisory and digital coordination functionalities. The subsequent full-scale RCT will include a third arm with “AI advisory” functionality only. The research team will partner with OCP Kenya (as part of the OCP Nutricrops ecosystem) and the Cereal Growers Association (Kenya) for deployment and measurement. The pilot study is scheduled to run from February 2026 to January 2027.
Targeted OCP Africa Initiatives
The intervention is embedded within Kenya’s Farmer Service Centers (FSCs) model, which forms the operational backbone of the Agribooster program. FSCs are managed by CGA (Cereal Growers Association) with OCP Kenya as a partner, and operated through agripreneurs who serve as last-mile service providers delivering inputs, advisory support, and market access to smallholder farmers. The study builds on this existing infrastructure by introducing AI-powered advisory and coordination tools within the FSC network, strengthening information flows between farmers and agripreneurs.
As in other countries, in some instances, OCP Kenya implements Agribooster alongside OCP School Lab (OSL), with the two programs operating in complementary and partially overlapping geographies. While OSL focuses on soil testing and agronomic training, Agribooster, through FSCs, facilitates input access and farmer coordination.