The Role and Potential of Social Agriculture: How to Support the Young Farmers Driving Food System Transformation in Africa

Young farmers are quietly transforming agriculture using WhatsApp, TikTok, and Facebook, creating economic opportunities and upskilling networks that may outperform billion-dollar agtech platforms, yet remain largely invisible to policymakers and lack opportunities to scale. This blog shares insights from Caribou’s latest report, created in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation.
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Al-Djanantou Seydou starts her day scrolling through WhatsApp, planning her next post for Facebook, and brainstorming hashtags using ChatGPT. But behind the screen, she’s growing her family’s soy farm in Parakou, Benin. She turns soy oil into soaps and flakes and shares soy-based porridge recipes on social media to combat child malnutrition. 

Beyond reaching customers, Al-Djanantou uses these platforms to build a community and mentor other young women in her area. What began as an everyday digital habit has grown into what Caribou calls “social agriculture,” the use of social media to exchange information, access markets, and build communities.

Al-Djanantou’s story is a window into a bigger shift sweeping across Africa: young farmers are rewriting what it means to work the land. They are streaming tutorials on TikTok, selling cashews through WhatsApp groups, and branding rice products on Instagram. These aren’t just side hustles—these young agriculturalists are responding to today’s digital reality and reimagining the future of agriculture. 

This September, the AgriInfluencer Network (AiN) brought that energy to the Africa Food Systems Forum (AFS) in Dakar, Senegal. Established in 2024 under the Caribou–Mastercard Foundation Learning Partnership, AiN is a pan-African community of young leaders using social media to inspire, connect, and grow. Their participation in AFS underscored what Caribou’s latest study reveals: social agriculture isn’t hidden on the margins. It’s happening in plain sight.

Our new report, Social Agriculture in the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU), which builds on our earlier research in Ghana, Senegal, and Kenya, zooms in on Benin and Côte d’Ivoire to understand how young farmers are using social media to support agricultural livelihoods.

Both countries have millions of active social media users (7 million in Côte d’Ivoire, 2.4 million in Benin), yet access is uneven. Rural women are 19% less likely than men to use mobile internet, and in rural Benin, just 11% of communities have electricity. Against this backdrop, informal WhatsApp groups have become the new agricultural extension service, filling gaps where traditional systems are limited.

Social agriculture is already complementing traditional systems, creating new opportunities for content creators—many of whom are farmers themselves—to share knowledge and build connections with hundreds of thousands of peers through WhatsApp groups, YouTube channels, Facebook communities, Instagram pages, TikTok videos, and more.

Fatou Dosso is a mother of three from Bouaké, Côte d’Ivoire. She turned her experience in a cashew factory into a thriving business producing flavored cashew almonds coated in chocolate, honey, and ginger. Her market is local, but her inspiration comes from TikTok entrepreneurs. She follows other farmers on social media to learn new techniques through tutorials and build connections with others via WhatsApp training groups.

At the AFS, AiN members brought these possibilities to the global stage. In the Youth Dome, they led a masterclass on scaling youth-led agricultural transformation through social media, sharing lessons that echo the study:

At AFS 2025, AiN represented youth voices, connecting with policymakers, researchers, and funders, and speaking in nearly 20 sessions across the forum.  

Youth are ready to lead, and the ecosystem is starting to notice. Instead of working on a parallel food system, development actors, policymakers, and private-sector investors should back this youth-led social change, starting with simple steps that help these young farmers learn from each other and get inspired.

Half of the farmers interviewed in the study pointed to access to finance as their greatest challenge. Social media has opened doors to mobile money and even crowdfunding, but formal monetization remains elusive, especially for women.

Connectivity gaps are another stumbling block. In Côte d’Ivoire, internet penetration is nearly half as high in rural areas (22%) as in urban areas (50%). Meanwhile, the cost of mobile data in Benin eats up nearly 6% of monthly income. For many rural youth, the simple act of uploading a product photo is still prohibitively expensive.

To tackle these challenges, the report provides in-depth recommendations for actions across four key ecosystem actor groups:

While responsibilities for these different actors vary, a coordinated and inclusive ecosystem is essential for social agriculture to reach its full potential. The following cross-cutting actions require joint commitment:

At Caribou, we believe combining research with lived experience is the blueprint for action. Reports like Social Agriculture in WAEMU provide evidence, while networks like AiN bring it to life. Together, they reveal what’s possible when grassroots innovation drives inclusion. Read the full report. Listen to the BBC Tech Life podcast (16:10) with Caribou’s Abbie, and two AiN members, Moussa and Adja.