AI Offers Promise for Agriculture, but Smallholder Farmers Risk Being Left Behind

By Abiodun Olusola Omotayo and Abeeb Babatunde Omotoso

Globally, agriculture faces mounting pressures. These are driven by climate change, land degradation, labor shortages, supply chain disruptions and the demand for food from a growing population.

At the same time, productivity is uneven. For example, maize yields in the US often exceed 10 tons per hectare. These high yields are driven by mechanization, improved seed varieties, irrigation and efficient input use, supported increasingly by precision agriculture technologies. In contrast, yields in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa remain around 2–3 tons per hectare. This reflects constraints like limited access to inputs, reliance on rain-fed systems and weaker infrastructure and institutional support.

Smallholder farmers make up around 80% of farmers in developing countries. They often struggle with low yields due to limited access to key agricultural inputs such as improved seeds, fertilizers and agrochemicals (herbicides and pesticides). They are less likely to rely on irrigation and farm mechanization. They also have high vulnerability to climate shocks.

Conventional farming practices, including reliance on rain-fed agriculture, the use of low-yielding local seed varieties, sub-optimal input application and heavy dependence on manual labor, are increasingly insufficient to meet the demands of 21st-century food systems.