The Pulse of African Agriculture Is Young and Digital

As Caribou concludes its incubation of the AgriInfluencer Network (AiN), the network is transitioning into the AgriPulse Network (APN). Behind this name is a simple conviction: young Africans are the pulse of the continent’s agriculture. This blog is the story of how young agriinfluencers turned a research project into a community, and how that community is now becoming an institution.

In recent years, digital agriculture platforms have multiplied across Africa, but few have reached smallholder farmers at scale. Connectivity gaps, high data costs, limited digital literacy, and one-way communication models continue to limit adoption and sustained use.

Farmers and agripreneurs have not waited for formal platforms to solve the knowledge gap. They are using WhatsApp groups, Facebook pages, TikTok videos, YouTube channels, and other mainstream social media to exchange advice, find markets, and build community. Caribou calls this practice social agriculture: using mainstream social media to share agricultural knowledge, access markets, and build communities. 

Agricultural knowledge does not move evenly. Across the African continent, agricultural extension and advisory services are meant to connect research, innovation, and farmers’ own decision-making. But in many contexts, that connection remains uneven: scientific evidence does not always reach farmers in forms they can access, trust, or use.

At the same time, farmers and agripreneurs generate practical knowledge through lived experience: testing, adapting, and sharing what works and what does not. Yet those insights rarely feed back into the systems designed to support them. Closing that gap requires stronger two-way knowledge exchange, so that agricultural information is both grounded in evidence and shaped by experience.

Stemming from over three years of research on social agriculture, in 2024 Caribou, in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation, launched a participatory action research project. It brought together young agriinfluencers: farmers, agronomists, agribusiness owners, agroprocessors, educators, advocates, and agricultural engineers who had built significant social media followings by sharing knowledge, building communities, and accessing markets online.

Caribou expected to generate evidence, develop learning resources, and test new approaches. What I did not expect was that the project would become the foundation for something much bigger: a community of young farmers, agronomists, agricultural engineers, agriculture journalists, agro-processors, and policy advocates reshaping the ways agricultural knowledge moves across Africa. APN’s current membership spans 11 countries, with 22 founding members whose combined social media audiences are estimated at nearly five million, many of them likely young farmers, agripreneurs, and agriculture-curious youth.

Africa is home to the world’s youngest population, and most of those young people will make their first career decisions in the next decade. The network exists to reach that generation and challenge a perception common among young people in many African countries: that agriculture is a fallback. APN’s central message is that farming and agribusiness are careers worth pursuing, capable of offering dignified and fulfilling livelihoods.

Evidence of the network’s impact comes from two years of participatory research, platform analytics, program data, and members’ own reports. Yet, the outcome I find hardest to capture in metrics is also the one I think matters most. Beyond stronger content, larger audiences, and new business opportunities, the network changed how members viewed their own roles. Members came to see themselves as a community of peers invested in one another’s success and in agriculture as a dignified profession for young people across Africa, rather than as individual agriinfluencers building personal brands.

Members now collaborate across countries and languages, co-create content, exchange technical expertise, refer opportunities to one another, connect partners with local peers they vouch for, and solve problems together. Those relationships extend well beyond organized activities to a self-sustaining network.

Development programs often conclude when funding ends, but communities endure when members develop a shared identity, purpose, and the confidence to lead without external coordination. By the end of the program, AiN had reached that point, becoming “a group bound by a shared domain, sustained relationships, and a practice they get better at together.” 

Through biweekly peer sessions, expert workshops, and member-led exchanges, the community learned from one another, sharing lessons, tools, and expertise. Together, they explored topics that few agricultural training programs address: digital branding, audience growth, platform monetization, online safety, using artificial intelligence for content creation, and protecting well-being in a demanding digital economy.

Members report that this collective learning strengthened their content, built their confidence in engaging with audiences, peers, agricultural institutions, and policymakers, and raised the standard of agricultural communication across the network. I observed this at an AiN gathering in Nairobi as agriinfluencers—some with audiences larger than mainstream media outlets—listened intently as they shared lessons on consistency, purpose, and audience trust. 

As the community grew stronger, so too did the opportunities and recognition. That visibility widens what young people across the continent believe is possible in agriculture: a sector that needs educators, communicators, innovators, and leaders alongside producers and agripreneurs.

At the Africa Food Systems Forum in Dakar in 2025, AiN members represented youth voices in more than 20 sessions, engaging directly with policymakers, researchers, private-sector leaders, and development partners. Across the network, members also secured media appearances, speaking engagements at national, regional, and international events, consultancy assignments, strategic partnerships, and invitations to contribute to research and policy discussions. These reflected both individual achievements and the credibility of belonging to a respected pan-African network.

The network’s flagship initiatives have also gained recognition. The Introduction to Social Agriculture course, co-created with AiN members, has reached more than 2,600 learners. Now available in English and French on UNICEF’s Youth Agency Marketplace (YOMA), the course could reach an estimated ~400,000 young people across Africa.

Network demand
When the AiN Mentorship Program first opened, 167 young people applied for 22 places. The second season grew into a continental learning community of 44 participants from across Africa. This oversubscription shows that young people see digital agriculture as a viable livelihood pathway, and that they want structured support from more digitally experienced peers to get there.

Over two years, the network’s combined following grew from roughly three million to over five million across major platforms (Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and TikTok).

Behind these follower counts is the knowledge actually travels through the network every day: practical agronomic guidance, market information, climate-smart practices, new innovations, policy developments that affect farmers’ and garipreneurs’ lives, and honest accounts of what an agricultural livelihood involves. For many followers, particularly young farmers and agripreneurs, social agriculture is their first reliable source of farming knowledge, reaching places formal agricultural extension programs rarely do. See examples from Amy Ka, Sindy, and Naija Farmer.

Early evidence suggests followers act on this information. Members have gathered hundreds of testimonials from farmers and agripreneurs describing how they moved into agriculture or changed a farming practice.

Much of this evidence is anecdotal. The reach is real, and the trust is real, but I cannot yet say what either produces: when information changes a farming decision, or how large and lasting effects on incomes and resilience are. Answering these questions requires longitudinal research, and it is the gap I would most want to see filled, with the network as a research partner co-designing studies on how social agriculture contributes to productivity, incomes, and youth employment and entrepreneurship across Africa. 

The transition from AiN to APN is more than a name change; it’s a milestone in social agriculture. APN is being registered as a Company Limited by Guarantee in Kenya to become an independent, member-led organization with its own governance, secretariat, strategic direction, and ambition to shape its own future.

APN is guided by a clear vision: thriving African food systems where farmers and agripreneurs across value chains use reliable knowledge, digital technologies, and market opportunities to build profitable, sustainable, and resilient businesses. Its mission is to transform how agricultural knowledge moves across Africa by connecting research to how farmers actually make decisions, accelerating innovation adoption and value addition, and repositioning agriculture as a profitable, dignified, and aspirational pathway for youth. 

One initiative already taking shape is the Agricultural Ambassador Certification Program, which, together with credible partners such as an African university or research partners such as CGIAR and CABI, would create a recognized professional qualification for agriinfluencers and a community to learn and exchange best practices as certified agricultural ambassadors.

As it enters this new chapter, APN is open to partnerships with governments, research institutions, universities, development organizations, philanthropies, and private-sector actors who are also committed to strengthening agricultural knowledge systems and engaging youth in agriculture. Collaboration is central to its model. That could mean joint research, program delivery, or campaigns that reach members’ combined audiences. It could also mean co-developing, delivering, and accrediting the ambassador certification, strengthening skills, or exchanging knowledge across institutions. 

The network also plans to grow its membership, extending its reach and country coverage, so that more agriinfluencers across the continent can access training, mentorship, peer learning, and the professional recognition the certification would offer.

We can see that the future of work for youth in agriculture will not be shaped by ministries or in boardrooms. It is being shaped in WhatsApp groups, TikTok videos, YouTube channels, and peer networks led by young people who understand both the agricultural sector and the audience. 

My advice to anyone considering building a similar network is that the hard part is not the launch. It is knowing when to step back and trusting that what you have built will hold. Watching this team get ready to fly on its own has been the best part of my job.

If your organization is wrestling with how to build, fund, or spin off a youth-led network, contact us.