u/fadimuj

I now pronounce you Farmer and... Robot? 💍

Welcome to the weirdest dating scene in the world: Digital Agriculture.

If you ask me about the future of farming tech in developing countries, I’ll tell you that Big Tech and Small Farms are in a toxic relationship—and right now, I’m acting as their Digital Marriage Counselor.

Currently, the industry feels like a terrible honeymoon. You have an NGO backed by a Silicon Valley billionaire spending the whole night bragging about Blockchain and AI-driven satellite imagery, while the local farmer is just sitting there trying to figure out how to fix a broken water pump.

It’s a total mismatch of love languages. 💔

Too many big corporations a hype-driven path as they swipe right on every expensive, flashy gadget that promises to change the world, only to leave the farmer heartbroken and broke when the project inevitably fails.

It is time to move away from the hype and get back to "Old School Romance"—tech that is driven by actual needs.

Give me a "boring" SMS alert system that saves a whole crop over a flashy VR headset in a village that barely has a 2G connection!

The future of digital farming depends entirely on how many of these good matches we can make compared to the bad ones.

What do you think? Are Big Tech and Small Farms heading for a messy divorce, or can we finally make this marriage work? 👇

#DigitalAgriculture #AgTech #Innovation #FarmersFirst #DigitalTransformation #Technology #Agriculture

We need to stop building shiny "Super Apps" for people who barely have access to electricity.

Earlier this week, I was reading through a Request for Proposal (RFP) for a new digital agriculture project.
The target audience? Smallholder farmers in one of the least tech-developed countries in the world.

The requirement? A massive mobile app with 15 major features.
They wanted a live discussion forum, a weather alert system, a digital farmers' market, a live market watch, a technical digital extension library, and more.
As I read through it, I honestly thought it was a joke.
We are talking about a region where internet coverage is weak, mobile data is highly expensive, and just finding a place to charge a phone battery is a daily struggle.
Yet, someone sitting in a comfortable, air-conditioned office thought: "You know what these farmers really need? A Facebook-style forum and a live stock-market tracker!"

Building an app with 15 heavy features doesn't solve the fact that these farmers need practical, easy solutions. An (SMS) system or voice alerts would reach 100 times more people than a heavy app that drains their battery and eats up their data in ten minutes.
Real innovation isn't about using the newest, flashiest technology. Real innovation is about using the right technology for the reality of your users.

Have you ever seen an RFP that was completely disconnected from reality? Let me know your thoughts below. 👇

#DigitalAgriculture #DigitalTransformation #AgTech #Technology #Agriculture #SmallFarmers