Digital agricultural technologies such as precision farming, mobile phone-based advisory platforms, smart irrigation, and satellite crop monitoring systems promise increased efficiency, environmental sustainability, and farm productivity. The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence-based applications—in new tools and integrated into existing ones—is accelerating this trend.
Yet these digital tools can have significant downsides for many farmers, particularly smallholders in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) using proprietary platforms not tailored to their needs. As a result, many farmers are marginalized or excluded from this important technology.