NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

By Carlos Mureithi

Sammy Selim strode through the dense, shiny green bushes on the slopes of his coffee farm in Sorwot village in Kericho, Kenya, accompanied by a younger farmer called Kennedy Kirui. They paused at each corner to send the farm’s coordinates to a WhatsApp conversation.

The conversation was with Virtual Agronomist, a tool that uses artificial intelligence to provide fertiliser application advice using chat prompts. The chatbot asked some further questions before producing a report saying that Selim should target a yield of 7.9 tonnes and use three types of fertiliser in specific quantities to achieve that goal.