Without social fit - no technical fix: inclusive digital extension for smallholders in Kenya and Uganda

Research for Development support to smallholder farming systems is, with 70-90% of the global public and philanthropic funds, heavily skewed towards technical solutions i.e. seeds, fertilizers, technologies; while it is people and social systems that make or break “change”. In their decision-making, smallholders are often restricted by a lack of knowledge to fully and sustainably use the potential of their agricultural resources. In low-and-middle-income countries extension services are in place to fill knowledge gaps, yet these are chronically understaffed, farm households are often remote, extension budgets limited and language barriers exist. Digital extension tools are meant to serve as a low-cost, innovative way to reach more farmers. In practice, most digital extension tools have a low social fit: they are inaccessible (low digital literary, poor network, unaffordable), commercial (non-impartial) and non-inclusive (women less frequently owning smartphones), resulting in a limited uptake and impact. As part of the CIRNA project (CIRcularity of Nutrients in Agroecosystems and co-benefits for animal and human health), we analysed phone ownership and use for agricultural extension in Kenya and Uganda. 99% of the households we interviewed owned a basic (feature) phone, while smartphone ownership was much higher in Kenya (82%) than in Uganda (28%). We teamed up with a Social Enterprise from Kenya, specialized on inclusive ICT solutions for development, to create two locally grounded digital extension pathways for smallholders: An AI-driven WhatsApp chatbot for Kenya, capitalizing on higher smartphone adoption, and an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) hotline for Uganda to ensure accessibility for feature phone users. The chatbot in Kenya has an SMS dial-in option, too, so also feature phone users can participate. The extension tools are built on a social business model where revenue from content scaling is re-invested into the platform. Early demand testing in Uganda has already engaged over 29,000 farmers, signalling a robust appetite for the proposed digital advisory service. We explore the potential of these tools to not only "scale out" numbers but "scale deep" by impacting social norms, specifically targeting women and youth to ensure inclusive development.