African Agri-Tech · ASAL Farmers · Open Data

Building the Future of Agriculture in Africa

agroio.africa is an agri-tech ecosystem purpose-built for smallholder farmers in Kenya's Arid and Semi-Arid Lands — combining AI, IoT, open data, and community to transform how Africa feeds itself.

Explore the Platform → Access Open Datasets
6K+
Farmers in target region
80%
Kenya landmass is ASAL
2024
Founded · Narok, Kenya

The Challenge

Why global AI models fail African farmers

Africa holds 60% of the world's uncultivated arable land yet contributes less than 10% of global agricultural output. The gap isn't effort — it's tools built for the wrong context.

📊

Data Scarcity

AI models trained on European and Asian datasets don't understand African soils, climates, or cropping systems.

🌍

Context Mismatch

A model trained on Kansas wheat fields won't predict outcomes for green grams or sorghum in Narok or Turkana.

🗣️

Language & Access Barriers

Most tools ignore local languages and indigenous farming knowledge — the very knowledge that sustains these communities.

📶

Infrastructure Gaps

Global AI assumes reliable internet and sensors — yet most ASAL farmers operate in low-connectivity environments.

Our founder's story started in a green gram field in Kitui County.

Farming in Kenya's dryland, unable to monitor crop health remotely, relying on delayed word from hired workers — and realizing thousands of ASAL farmers faced the exact same problem.

agroio.africa was built from that lived experience. Not as a solution imported from outside, but as infrastructure built from the inside.

30%
of Kenya's population lives in ASALs
~0
smart farming tools built for this context

The Platform

One tool. Four pillars.
Built for the field.

Request Early Access
🧠

AI Decision Support

Context-aware crop advice trained on African farms, local conditions, and indigenous knowledge — not imported benchmarks.

Multilingual
📡

IoT Sensors

Low-cost soil moisture, temperature, and rainfall sensors designed to work in low-connectivity ASAL environments.

Offline-capable
🌱

Crop Health Analytics

Pest identification via image recognition, subsidised soil testing, and real-time health monitoring — remotely.

Image AI
🛒

Agri Marketplace

An integrated e-commerce layer connecting smallholder farmers to buyers, inputs, and services — reducing market uncertainty.

Coming Soon

Open Data Hub

African farm data, open to the world.

We believe the data problem is the AI problem. agroio.africa is building the first open-access agricultural dataset repository grounded in ASAL farming reality.

Kitui County Soil Moisture Index
IoT Sensors · 2024–ongoing · Kitui, Kenya
Open
Green Gram Crop Health Images
Image recognition · 2,400+ labelled samples
Open
ASAL Rainfall Microclimate Data
Weather stations · Narok, Turkana, Kitui
In Progress
Swahili / Kamba Farming Terminology Corpus
NLP · Kenya NLP collaboration
In Progress
Smallholder Pest Incident Reports
Community-sourced · 6,000+ farm network
Open
Hub Overview · Aug 2026
5
Active datasets
3
Counties covered
CC
Open license (CC BY 4.0)
∞
Free to use & build on
Crop data72%
Soil & climate48%
Language / NLP30%
Market data15%
Browse Datasets → Contribute Data

Events & Community

Where the ecosystem meets.

Conferences, workshops, and community gatherings that connect farmers, researchers, policymakers, and builders across Africa.

📅 November 2026

Data Design & Data Ecosystem Conference

Our flagship annual convening — bringing together researchers, policymakers, agri-tech builders, and farmers to design the future of African agricultural data.

📍 Kenya ~150 attendees Register Interest
🔁 Ongoing

ASAL Farmer Field Days

Community-level demonstrations of the agroio.africa platform — on-farm training, IoT sensor setup, and direct feedback sessions with smallholder farmers.

📍 Kitui, Narok, Turkana Host One
🎓 2027+

Open Data Research Sprints

Collaborative sessions for universities, NLP researchers, and AI labs to build on agroio.africa's open datasets. Hosted in partnership with Kenya NLP and Masakhane.

📍 Nairobi + Virtual Get Involved

Our Journey

From a green gram field to a continental platform.

2024 — The Idea is Born

A farm in Kitui reveals the gap

Farming green grams in Kitui County, unable to monitor remotely, relying on informal worker updates — agroio.africa concept formed from lived experience, not a boardroom.

2024–25 — Early Building

First prototype ships

Pest ID via image recognition, IoT sprinkler automation, and subsidised soil testing — built from scratch for the ASAL context.

August 2025 — Deep Learning Indaba, Kigali

Presented at "Centring Data in African AI"

Pivotal feedback from the global AI research community confirmed the thesis: data availability is the core problem. The hub vision crystallised.

2025–26 — Data & Partnerships

Recognition and ecosystem roles

Guest lecturer at Strathmore University · Appointed to MMARAU Digital Infrastructure Committee · Member of KenyaNLP (Masakhane) · Internal board member of Women in Space Kenya.

2026 — Policy & Research

Featured in GSMA Mobile for Development report

Recognised as an expert in strengthening Kenya's data ecosystem for AI (pg 67) — validating agroio.africa's approach at the policy level.

Recognised across Africa's tech and research ecosystem

From farm to global stage — agroio.africa has been validated by some of Africa's most respected institutions.

🌍 GSMA Mobile for Development — Expert Feature (2026)
🎓 Strathmore University — Guest Lecturer
📡 Deep Learning Indaba 2025 — Presenter, Kigali
🤝 Kenya NLP / Masakhane — Member
🚀 Women in Space Kenya — Board Member
🏛️ MMARAU — Digital Infrastructure Committee

The Team

Built by people who farm here.

agroio.africa is founded and led from within the communities it serves — with deep roots in Kenyan agriculture, technology, and digital policy.

Amos Mwendwa

Amos Mwendwa

Co-Founder · agroio.africa

Amos Mwendwa is a digital communications and innovation professional with a background in Geography, specialising in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing. He is the Co-Founder of AGRO.io, an African-founded agri-tech platform built to serve smallholder farmers in Kenya's arid and semi-arid lands — integrating AI decision support, crop health analytics, IoT sensors, and an e-commerce marketplace designed for low-connectivity environments.

His work sits at the intersection of geospatial intelligence, data science, and agricultural innovation. He has presented AGRO.io at Deep Learning Indaba 2025 in Kigali, guest lectured at Strathmore University, and was featured as an expert in the GSMA Mobile for Development report Strengthening Kenya's Data Ecosystem for AI. He also serves on the Maasai Mara University Digital Infrastructure and Data Ecosystem Committee and is a member of KenyaNLP.

▶ DLI 2025 Presentation — Kigali 📄 GSMA MfD Report (pg 67)

Partners & Collaborators

Kenya NLP / Masakhane
Women in Space Kenya
Maasai Mara University
Strathmore University
GSMA Mob. for Development
Deep Learning Indaba

Want to collaborate?

We're open to partnerships with universities, research institutions, NGOs, government agencies, and agri-tech builders across Africa and beyond.

info@agroio.africa →

Ready to grow with African data?

Whether you're a farmer, researcher, funder, or builder — there's a place for you in the agroio.africa ecosystem.

Partner With Us → Request Platform Access