Understanding Smallholder Farmer Behavior

This study came across my feeds today, and it’s worth noting for three reasons: customer discovery, farm pilots and startup pioneering work with farmers If startups enter the field assuming a classic “adoption” problem—i.e., that farmers simply need education, incentives, or proof of ROI—they will systematically misread small- and medium-scale biodiverse farmers. The study shows that many farmers are not undecided adopters waiting to be convinced; they are selectively engaged, often redefining “digital agriculture” around communication, planning, marketing, and practical coordination tools rather than robotics or AI-heavy systems. For customer discovery, this means founders must suspend the assumption that their technology sits at the center of farm decision-making. Interviews and field immersion should focus less on feature validation and more on understanding workflow cadence, ecological complexity, labor constraints, and relational priorities (human–human and human–animal). Discovery should surface where technology is peripheral, where electrification may matter more than digitization, and where the real “job to be done” may not resemble the startup’s original thesis. For farm pilots, the findings suggest that conventional validation structures—short-term trials measuring productivity gains—are often misaligned with agroecological practice. Biodiverse farms operate through daily judgment, mixed enterprises, and context-specific adaptation; rigid pilot designs that seek standardized performance metrics risk missing what actually constitutes value. Startups should co-design pilots around integration into existing routines, labor relief, and compatibility with diverse cropping systems rather than forcing farms to adjust to the tool. Success metrics may need to include qualitative indicators: reduced cognitive load, improved coordination, better human–animal interactions, or seasonal planning clarity. Pilots should be framed as collaborative experiments embedded in farm practice, not technology demonstrations imposed upon it. Finally, regarding farmer pioneering activity, the study implies that early adopters in biodiverse agriculture may not look like classic “tech champions.” Pioneering behavior may involve recombining simple digital tools, selectively integrating electrified equipment, or adapting low-tech systems creatively, rather than scaling advanced automation. Agtech startups seeking lighthouse customers should therefore broaden their definition of innovation leadership. The most valuable partners may be farmers who are reflective, systems-oriented, and willing to experiment within ecological constraints—not those seeking maximum technological intensity. Recognizing farmers’ “in-difference” as a thoughtful positional stance, rather than resistance, can help startups build credibility, design more context-native tools, and avoid reinforcing scale-biased innovation pathways. https://lnkd.in/grZCkpSu

INSIGHT: How the farming industry is structurally designed to keep farmers broke. Not unlucky. Not unskilled. Structurally trapped. There is a difference — and it matters for anyone serious about building solutions in this space. 5 embedded flaws extracting value from farmers at every point in the chain. ✓ Farmers Are Price Takers, Never Price Makers The farmer is the only business owner who buys inputs at retail and sells outputs at wholesale — with zero influence over either price. A consultant can raise rates. A manufacturer can raise prices. A farmer who holds grain for better prices faces storage costs, spoilage, and debt interest. Time works against the farmer in a way it works against no other business owner. ✓ Sell Raw, Buy Processed — Forever Farmers sell the lowest-value form of everything they produce. A farmer selling tomatoes receives $0.10/kg. A processor packaging the same fruit captures $2.00/kg. Processing requires capital, market access, and regulatory compliance — barriers individual farmers cannot cross alone, in a system not designed to help them cross collectively. ✓ Full Downside, Partial Upside — Every Season When the season fails, the farmer absorbs 100% of the loss. The seed company was paid. The bank wants its repayment. When the season succeeds, profit distributes across traders and processors before the farmer sees their share. No rational investor would accept these terms. Farmers have no choice. ✓ Their Biggest Asset Is Legally Invisible A smallholder on 5 hectares may hold an asset worth $15,000–$50,000 — but weak title systems and unrecognized customary tenure mean that wealth is completely frozen. They cannot borrow against it. Hernando de Soto called this "dead capital" in 2000. In much of Africa, the problem has barely moved. ✓ Information Asymmetry As A Structural Weapon Commodity traders and processors run real-time market intelligence. Farmers get advice from agro-dealers who profit from their recommendations. By the time a farmer learns prices spiked last week, the window is closed. If you are a policymaker or investor in African agriculture, understanding these flaws determines whether your intervention extracts from farmers or genuinely builds them up. The answer is not charity. It is better infrastructure — for land rights, market data, and the digital systems that make both function. Land use and management planning is one place to start. Knowing what a parcel is suited for, how it should be rotated, and what it is officially designated for — that alone changes the quality of every decision a farmer makes downstream. What would you add? #AgriTech #LandIntelligence #AfricanAgriculture #Earthasoft #Parcellar

🔍 Understanding your customer - this is a basic concept relevant in every industry but how well do agri food companies really know theirs? If you are working closely with farmers as your main customer or partner - I believe that knowing not only the basic data (demographics, location, ..) but really understanding the agricultural year and routines is crucial in order to be able to collaborate well. Imagine you plan to: 🔸 organize a workshop with an olive farmer in November 🔸 ask a dairy farmer to attend a training that starts early in the morning 🔸 ask a farmer to complete paperwork when they are in the middle of doing their CAP documents 🔸 have a calm phone call with a cereal farmer in July 🔸 get anyone to do anything in August (𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘺𝘦𝘴, 𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘦 😅) So besides the traditional ‘persona’ building, here some important questions I believe are essential: ▫️ What 𝗰𝗿𝗼𝗽𝘀 𝗼𝗿 𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗰𝗸 do your farmers handle? ▫️ Is the person you are dealing with a 𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗱𝘀-𝗼𝗻 𝗳𝗮𝗿𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗱𝗺𝗶𝗻 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻 in an office? ▫️ What are 𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗸 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀 for different types of crops or animals? Think about harvest, seeding, pruning, birth season, ... ▫️ Which 𝗮𝗱𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗮𝘀𝗸𝘀 do farmers have to deal with throughout the year (CAP documents, organic certification audits,..) and when? ▫️ What are 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘆𝘀 in the specific country you are working in that can affect your interactions? ▫️ What 𝗺𝗮𝗷𝗼𝗿 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 do many farmers attend (consider big events like FIMA, Fruit Attraction or Biofach that attract farmers from all over Europe)? For me, this means to really connect with farmers in-person and get a real understanding of their context and might require adjusting your yearly planning based on these findings.  However, knowing these will definitely help to better collaborate and most importantly ensure not to add unnecessary pressure on farmers during already intense periods or times. 𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘳 𝘴𝘶𝘨𝘨𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘦?

Agriculture's biggest revolution is happening. The farmer it promised to save is watching from outside. The global digital farming market: $30 billion in 2025. Projected $84 billion by 2033. Satellites. Drones. AI soil sensors. Algorithmic planting advisories. I work with farmers across Koraput. Here is what that revolution looks like from a 1-acre plot. Last season, a farmer asked me about a soil health app he'd seen advertised. The app required a smartphone with 4GB RAM. His phone had 1GB.The app required continuous internet for real-time soil data. His village gets two bars of signal on a clear day. The app cost ₹2,400 a year for the precision tier.His net farm income last year was ₹18,000. This is not a technology problem. It is an architecture problem. Precision agriculture was designed for 1,000-acre commercial farms in Iowa. Not for 1-acre smallholder farms in Odisha. The data models were trained on flat, large-plot, mechanised farming conditions. The business model requires subscription revenue — which means it requires reliable income. Neither fits the tribal farming reality. Meanwhile, the Global South is constantly cited as the frontier market. The growth opportunity. The next billion users. But the tools arrive pre-designed for someone else. The farmer becomes a data point in a market report.Not a beneficiary of the market. The question the sector refuses to answer: does this end up empowering farmers, or does it shift the control and decision-making on farms away from farmers into the corporations that hold the technology? I have watched that shift happen in a single conversation. The farmer stopped trusting his own soil reading. He was waiting for the app to tell him. We called that adoption.I call it something else.

Technology alone is a half-measure. What if I told you that giving a female farmer higher-yielding seeds doesn't actually empower her? For decades, the agricultural development sector has operated on a simple equation: Better Technology = Better Livelihoods. But our research in Kenya reveals a flaw in this logic. In counties like Makueni, Nakuru, and Embu, women contribute the majority of the labour but often hold the minority of the power. If we provide improved beans or maize varieties without addressing the household dynamics, we act in vain. A woman might harvest twice as much, but if she still has zero say in how that income is spent, we haven't empowered her—we’ve just given her more work. In our newly published paper in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, my colleagues (Nyamolo Victor Oscar Ingasia Ayuya Lutomia Kweyu) and I analysed the impact of Socio-Technical Innovation Bundles (STIBs) on smallholder farmers' empowerment. We moved beyond "just seeds" to "bundles" that combine: Agronomic innovations (Improved varieties, IPM), Social innovations (Gender training, financial literacy, nutrition education) Bundling Works: Farmers who adopted the full bundle (social + technical + technology) had significantly higher empowerment scores than those who only adopted the technology. The Gender Gap Persists, But Shrinks: While men still started with a higher empowerment baseline, the rate of empowerment increases for women when social training is included. Intensity Matters: The more components of the bundle a farmer adopts, the greater their agency and leadership become. This isn't just about index scores or p-values. This is about the moment when a husband and wife sit down together to make a financial decision for the first time. It is about a female farmer realising that her voice in the cooperative meeting carries weight. When we treat agriculture as a human system—rather than just a production factory—we don't just increase yields. We restore dignity. We build partnerships. We change the future of families. It is time to stop designing "tech-only" interventions. If you are a donor, a practitioner, or a policymaker, stop funding distribution without education. Stop sending seeds without sending social support. 👇 Read the full open-access paper here https://lnkd.in/gF4aXUQX Let’s discuss: Have you seen social innovations successfully integrated into technical agricultural projects? What worked? CGIAR Gender Equality and Inclusion CGIAR The Alliance in Africa Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT

They Feed 70% of Kenya. Why Aren't They at the Table? This October, I facilitated a panel discussion at the National Agribusiness Summit on "Agro-Processing & Trade Facilitation – Enhancing Value Addition and Access to Local, Regional, African, and Global Markets." What should have been a routine session exposed something we can no longer ignore. Smallholder farmers, who produce over 70% of food in Sub-Saharan Africa, are systematically excluded from decision-making spaces that determine their own futures. Their agroecological knowledge has fed us sustainably for centuries without declaring war on the planet. They understand seed diversity, soil health, and climate adaptation in ways that no imported "expert" from the Global North can replicate with research papers based on their traditional practices. The Contradictions We Must Name: 1. We discuss seed quality while ignoring indigenous seeds, then wonder why introduced varieties fail in African soil. 2. We push GMO-friendly policies without investing in technologies that improve the seeds we already have and that farmers have stewarded for generations. 3. We hand power to commercial agriculture, whose dependency on hazardous pesticides destroys biodiversity, while setting standards that exclude the farmers feeding 7 out of 10 Kenyans. 4. We frame the challenge as a "production problem" when the real issue is distribution. Globally, we produce enough food to feed everyone and still waste over one-third of it (some estimates put it at 40%). What Happens When Farmers Are Pushed Out? - Policies get made at the top and handed down for implementation without consulting the very people who will be affected. - Land grabbing accelerates under the banner of "agro-processing expansion." - Contract farming arrangements disadvantage those who know the land best. - Seed sovereignty (the right to save, exchange, and sell traditional seeds) gets eroded by uniformity demands from formal trade systems. And our once green farms turn into concrete jungles. Our food gets more expensive. Our health keeps deteriorating. A Different Path Is Possible 1. Invite smallholder farmers into policy-making spaces not as tokens, but as decision-makers. 2. Invest in agroecological practices that work with nature, not against it. 4. Structure trade facilitation to prioritise local farmer expertise first. 5. Ensure that when we talk about "value addition," smallholders are partners and beneficiaries, not just raw material sources. The future of food in Kenya, in Africa, will not be secured by parachuting in external solutions, but by centering the wisdom, rights, and agency of the people who have been feeding us all along.

AI can transform agricultural production for smallholder farmers in low- and middle-income countries, but only when it reduces a real pain point at the moment a farmer must decide. Here is a farmer centered case that many people designing AI tools overlook: planting and input timing under uncertain rainfall. For a rainfed smallholder, the question is not “What will my yield be?” The question is “If I plant this week and the rains stop, what do I lose, and can I recover?” The same goes for fertilizer. One wrong timing decision can waste cash, increase debt, and still leave the crop hungry. A farmer centered AI tool earns its place by turning uncertainty into visible trade offs. It combines local forecast signals with simple, low burden field information that farmers and extension teams already work with, then translates that into practical options a farmer can compare. The output is not a single recommendation. It is a set of choices that shows what changes if the farmer plants now versus later, or applies nutrients in one dose versus smaller split doses, and what risks each option carries. The trust part is not a nice to have. It is the product. Farmers need to see why the tool is suggesting something, what it is uncertain about, and what would change the advice. When farmers can challenge the output, they are more likely to use it. When they cannot, they will correctly treat it as another outside instruction. If we want AI to matter in smallholder agriculture, the standard should be simple: does it protect farmer time, cash, and effort, while strengthening farmer agency and informed choice? Anything else is technology looking for a problem.

I Used to Ask Why Africa Doesn’t Have Mega-Farms — Then I Understood the System For years, one question stayed with me: Why doesn’t Africa have mega-farms like the U.S. or Brazil? I mean one company with hundreds of thousands of hectares, feeding entire regions. Then I came home to Nigeria. Small plots everywhere. Two hectares here, five there or ten somewhere else with fragmented production. So I thought this was our weakness until I experienced land acquisition firsthand. That was when it clicked. In the U.S., land is a transaction. In Africa, land is a relationship. You don’t just buy land, you inherit people, history, and responsibilities. Africa isn’t broken but we are simply built differently. So the better question became: not “why can’t Africa copy foreign models?” But “How can Africa achieve the same outcome using its own system?” That’s when the African agribusiness model became clear: Anchor farms. Organised smallholders. Strong systems. Let me give an example here. An anchor cassava company doesn’t need to own 200,000 hectares. It sets standards, improved stems, agronomy, and processing capacity. Thousands of smallholder cassava farmers grow under those standards. Systems handle financing, aggregation, quality control, logistics, and guaranteed offtake. Individually they are small but together they function like one mega-farm. Not owned by one entity. But coordinated under one vision. And this is where the real opportunities lie. For instance anchor farm opportunities may include: ▪️Cassava processing plants (starch, flour, ethanol) ▪️Improved stem multiplication businesses ▪️Large-scale aggregation hubs For smallholder organisation opportunities may include: ▪️Outgrower management companies ▪️Cooperative digitisation platforms ▪️Extension-as-a-service businesses While System-building opportunities include: ▪️Input financing and embedded credit models ▪️Logistics and aggregation tech ▪️Traceability, quality assurance, and offtake platforms This is how Africa scales agriculture, not by forcing foreign models but by designing around our reality. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. What other models do you think can help Africa build a strong, self-sufficient agribusiness sector? #Agribusiness #Agripreneurship #FarmingIsBusiness #AgriLeadership #AgriSystems #FoodSecurity #AgricultureAfrica