Bridging the gap: Can Croppie take root in Kenya’s coffee sector?
Researchers from the Alliance and KALRO-Coffee Research Institute met on 11 September 2026 to explore how the AI-enabled mobile app Croppie could support Kenya’s coffee sector through smartphone-based yield estimation and improved farm decision-making, and to assess the needs and pathways for local adaptation of the technology.
Coffee is a key pillar of Kenya’s economy, ranking as the third-largest agricultural export, with its premium Arabica coffee prized globally for its distinct flavour and aroma. The subsector supports about 13 percent of households and employs people across the supply chain. However, production has declined by 70 percent from 130,000 metric tonnes in 1988 to 50,000 metric tonnes in 2021. Kenya’s current objective is to reinvigorate the sector to 150,000 t.
Today, yield estimation still depends heavily on people moving through coffee fields, selecting trees and branches, and counting cherries by hand. It is necessary work, but it is also repetitive, time-consuming, and difficult to standardize across large farms and many technicians. For a farmer managing hundreds or thousands of trees, the cost of obtaining good information can become a problem in itself.