What agripreneurs told us about AskNia

Did you know that a four-year study of smallholder households in Western Kenya found that only 9% of chickens leaving a flock were sold, while 60% were lost to mortality?

Imagine any business where losses exceed sales sixfold.

That's the reality many smallholder poultry farmers face.

Those losses aren't just chickens. They represent household income, school fees, nutrition, working capital & resilience. Every avoidable loss is an economic loss.

The challenge isn't that farmers don't want to make the right decisions.

It's that many of those decisions have to be made in the moment, often with limited information.

Last week, we brought together agripreneurs, farmers & farmer champions along with Shortlist Futures to reflect on their experience using Kuza One (Kuza Biashara) AskNia.

Interestingly, the conversation wasn't really about AI.

It was about decision-making.

A few insights that stood out:

→ Farmers weren't looking for AI to make decisions for them. They wanted AI to help them make better decisions, with greater confidence.

→ Trust still sits with the agripreneur, the trusted human layer. When livelihoods are at stake, people don't just want answers. They want someone they trust to help interpret those answers in the context of their own farm.

→ AI strengthens expertise, it doesn't replace it. Agripreneurs saw AskNia as a way to validate their thinking, access knowledge faster and support more farmers without compromising quality.

→ The greatest value of AI is timing. The right advice, at the right moment, before a costly decision is made or a timely one not made, is often worth far more than information received too late.

That, to us, is where AI needs to go.

Every day, a farmer makes dozens of decisions.

❖ Is this disease serious enough to act on immediately?

❖ Should I vaccinate today or wait?

❖ Do I sell now, or hold for another week?

❖ Is there a better feed option that gives me the same outcome at a lower cost?

Most farming outcomes are simply the result of hundreds of small decisions made over time. AI has the potential to improve those decisions, not because it knows more than people, but because it can put the right knowledge in the hands of the right person at the exact moment it is needed.

Perhaps that's the real opportunity AI presents.

Not just to democratise knowledge. Knowledge has never been more accessible.

But to democratise good judgment by putting the right knowledge into the hands of trusted people at exactly the right moment.

Technology scales knowledge.

But we learnt, People scale trust.

The future of agriculture will need both.

Thank you to every agripreneur, farmer & farmer champion who continue to shape AskNia through your experience, your questions and your willingness to challenge our thinking. The future of AI in agriculture won't be defined by the quality of its answers, but by the quality of the decisions it helps people make.