Kenyan graduates turn to AI tools for farming as job market dries up
With Kenya's official unemployment rate above 13 percent, university graduates are turning to AI-powered decision tools for small-scale farming. Al Jazeera reports verifiable yield gains around Mombasa and Eldoret. The government has announced an accelerator programme.
Kenya's Bureau of Statistics says unemployment among university graduates aged 25 to 29 has reached 27.4 percent in its latest report. Incubator managers who spoke to Al Jazeera say large numbers of graduates are turning to small farms around Mombasa, Nakuru and Eldoret, with many building AI-based applications for soil moisture, disease detection and irrigation optimisation.
Nairobi-based ApolloAgro and Mombasa-based Twiga Genie offer free plant disease identification from leaf photos taken by smallholders on phone cameras. Pilot zones have reported tomato and bean yield gains of between 18 and 24 percent. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, the number of farmers enrolled in such programmes has risen from 320,000 to 510,000 in the past six months.
Kenya's Presidential Digital Economy Council has announced a 9 million dollar accelerator programme for university graduates. Additional funding talks are underway with the European Investment Bank and the Mastercard Foundation. Economists say the model's scalability across East Africa will depend on planned pilots this year in Tanzania and Uganda.
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