Smart Africa and FAO Launch Third Innovate Africa Challenge for AI-Driven Climate-Smart Agriculture

Smart Africa and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations have launched the third edition of the Innovate Africa Challenge, calling for AI-driven climate-smart agriculture solutions from innovators across Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda and Uganda.

The challenge, opened for applications on 29 July 2026, continues a partnership between the pan-African digital transformation body and the FAO aimed at surfacing and scaling practical technology solutions for smallholder farmers facing increasingly unpredictable climate conditions. Previous editions of the Innovate Africa Challenge have supported winning teams with funding, technical mentorship and pathways to pilot deployment with agricultural extension services in participating countries.

### AI meets the realities of smallholder farming

This year's edition places specific emphasis on AI applications for climate-smart agriculture, an area organisers say has moved from experimental to genuinely deployable given falling costs of satellite imagery, mobile sensor hardware, and machine learning tools suited to lower-connectivity rural environments. Eligible solutions span areas including AI-driven weather and yield forecasting, pest and disease detection through image recognition, and optimised irrigation and input-use recommendations tailored to smallholder plot sizes rather than the industrial-scale farming operations most agricultural AI tools have historically targeted.

The five participating countries were selected based on a mix of factors including agricultural sector significance, existing digital infrastructure readiness, and government engagement with Smart Africa's broader digital transformation agenda. Rwanda and Kenya, both of which have invested heavily in digital public infrastructure and agricultural technology pilots in recent years, are expected to see strong applicant pools, while organisers see the inclusion of Malawi and Ghana as an opportunity to extend the programme's reach to smallholder farming contexts with less existing AI pilot activity.

Winning teams from the challenge will receive a combination of grant funding, mentorship from FAO agricultural technology specialists, and support connecting with government agricultural extension programmes in their home countries to move successful pilots toward wider deployment. Smart Africa said the application window would remain open for several weeks, with finalists to be announced following a technical review process later in the year.