The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the African Forum for Agricultural Advisory Services (AFAAS), in collaboration with AFAAS national chapters in Kenya (KEFAAS), Liberia (LIFAAS), Nigeria (NIFAAS), and Uganda (UFAAS) have launched a joint effort to explore how generative artificial intelligence (AI) can strengthen agricultural extension systems across Africa.
The collaboration builds on IFPRI and AFAAS’s shared commitment to evidence-based innovation in agricultural advisory services. Through IFPRI’s Generative AI for Agriculture (GAIA) initiative, the partners are conducting design workshops to inform emerging AI applications that can support farmers and extension agents with timely, localised, and trusted information. These activities bring together, extension professionals, researchers, and policymakers to explore how generative AI can complement human advisory systems and support national digital agriculture strategies.
As the collaboration advances, the partners would convene national stakeholders to identify priority use cases and co-design approaches for testing AI-enabled advisory tools. The collaboration emphasises a participatory process centered on trust, usability, language accessibility, and contextual relevance, ensuring that future AI innovations strengthen human relationships at the heart of agricultural extension. The Senior Research Analyst, GAIA Initiative of IFPRI, Eliot Jones-Garcia said, “Extension systems across Africa are already evolving through digital innovation. By working with AFAAS and its country networks, we are ensuring that AI tools are tested, adapted, and governed in ways that reflect local realities and amplify – not replace – human expertise”.
The NIFAAS/NAERLS Founding Member, Christogonus Daudu stated that “The IFPRI-AFAAS partnership, working through NIFAAS and the National Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison Services (NAERLS), has brought Nigerian extension professionals into a timely and critical conversation on the role of AI in agricultural advisory services. This engagement comes at a moment when public extension systems in Nigeria – and across Africa – are at their lowest ebb, constrained by severe limitations in knowledge, human resources, and infrastructure. Contextual AI interventions are, therefore, not optional, but are urgently needed, both to strengthen advisory functions that extension systems currently struggle to deliver and to reach farmers and communities that existing structures are unable to serve”.
The Chief Executive Officer of UFAAS, Beatrice Luzobe disclosed that “In Uganda, the extension worker-to-farmer ratio remains a major challenge. From these discussions, it is clear that artificial intelligence presents a valuable opportunity to complement human expertise and strengthen agricultural extension systems. Rather than fearing replacement, extension professionals should embrace AI, as a tool that enhances the quality, speed, and effectiveness of extension delivery. This collaboration with IFPRI is timely”. The Executive Director of AFAAS, Lilian Lihasi Kidula stated that “Africa’s extension system must not be left behind in the current digital transformation era and AI revolution. AFAAS, through its partnership with IFPRI and Country forums, strives to ensure that AI-enabled digital advisory systems adopt a public-private partnership model and are shaped by farmers’ realities, while expanding the reach, relevance, and resilience of extension and advisory services in the continent”.
AFAAS is the continental body that supports and coordinates Agricultural Extension and Advisory Services (AEAS) across Africa. Its national chapters, KEFAAS in Kenya, LIFAAS in Liberia, NIFAAS in Nigeria, and UFAAS in Uganda, promote innovation, professionalism, and collaboration among AEAS providers in their respective countries while IFPRI provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition. IFPRI’s strategic research aims to identify and analyse alternative international and country-led strategies and policies for meeting food and nutrition needs in low-and middle-income countries, with particular emphasis on poor and vulnerable groups in those countries, inclusive development, and sustainability. It is also a research centre of CGIAR, a worldwide partnership engaged in agricultural research for development.
