If you spend any actual time on the ground in places like Kitale, you quickly realise how detached our conversations about agricultural financing are when they happen in air-conditioned boardrooms in Nairobi and other world capitals.
Out in the fields, the statistics look like Mama Wafula. She does not need a weather app to tell her the rains have changed; she can see it in her maize stalks. Her problem is not a lack of data but a lack of cash. She needs a realistic way to pay for certified seeds or a solar pump before her topsoil turns to dust.
Yet international venture capital tells a different story. For the past decade, tech hubs and global summits have promoted the idea that building an app and refining an algorithm can solve poverty. Investors embraced the narrative, pouring more than $1 billion into Kenyan fintechs on the promise that instant mobile credit would transform livelihoods. It has not.
The 2026 Kenya National Bureau of Statistics Economic Survey shows the economy remains resilient, but agricultural growth slowed to 3.1 percent as erratic weather disrupted production. When climate shocks hit, purely digital lending begins to fail.
Farming does not follow a neat 30-day repayment cycle, yet most lending apps rely on short-term unsecured loans.
Expecting rigid repayment schedules to support an industry where nearly 80 percent of farmers depend on rainfall is not innovation. It is a structural design failure.
Commercial banks largely avoid smallholder farmers because they consider them too risky. Fintech firms step in with quick but expensive loans that rarely match crop cycles, trapping many households in debt instead of helping them grow.
If agriculture is to realise its potential, we must stop treating automation as a silver bullet.
We need a hybrid model that combines digital efficiency with human relationships and local knowledge. Micro-finance institutions like Juhudi Kilimo have demonstrated this for years.
Rather than offering unsecured cash, they finance productive assets such as dairy cows and irrigation equipment.
They have channelled more than Sh14.5 billion into rural communities, reaching half a million households, with about 70 percent of clients being women who are often excluded from conventional bank lending. Their success rests on community peer groups that overcome long-standing structural barriers.
An app can transfer money in seconds, but it cannot tell whether a farmer has bought counterfeit seeds or show them how to use a drip irrigation kit.
Government platforms such as the Kenya Inte-grated Agriculture Management Information System have registered more than seven million farmers, but data alone does not grow food. Real progress comes when digital systems are backed by local field officers who provide training, build trust, promote financial literacy and share climate-smart farming practices.
Fintech is a powerful accelerator, but it is not a cure-all. A financial system that truly supports farmers must combine smart digital tools with people who understand the realities of life in the field.
Dan Karuga is the the incoming CEO of Juhudi Kilimo
