Tanzania’s smallholder farmers struggle to benefit from digital agriculture

Tanzania’s digital agriculture services are intended to help farmers find market information, get farming advice and connect with buyers, but some smallholders say they lack the training or timely responses needed to benefit. Their reliance on cooperative auctions, public meetings and media highlights the gap between making a service available and making it useful in daily farming decisions.

The government’s $3.62 million programme, running from September 2024 to August 2027, aims to improve digital literacy for 500,000 farmers and train 500 extension workers. A 2024 study reported about 7.2 million farmers registered on M-Kilimo and 75,623 advisory consultations, but it did not show how many farmers actively used the service or benefited; it also identified roughly 400,000 incomplete registrations and digital access challenges.