As Kenya braces for another volatile planting season marked by floods in some regions and drought in others, agricultural information service FarmBizAfrica has launched a new AI-driven tool designed to help farmers make safer, more profitable crop choices for the 2026 long rains.
The launch comes amid rising food prices and mounting shortages following a farming season heavily disrupted by extreme and uneven weather. According to FarmBizAfrica, future food security will increasingly depend not on acreage alone, but on whether farmers plant crops suited to their specific location, soils, and expected rainfall patterns.
“With nearly all our crops still rain-fed, planting the same crops regardless of weather conditions is wrecking farmers’ incomes and pushing up food prices for everyone,” said Antynet Ford of FarmBizAfrica. “The last short rains showed just how risky this has become.”
During the previous season, highly uneven rainfall left maize farmers at the Coast without a harvest, while farmers in higher rainfall areas lost tomatoes, beans, and avocados to waterlogging. These losses have fed directly into higher market prices and reduced household food availability.
In response, FarmBizAfrica has introduced HarvestMAX, an AI-powered planning tool that generates location-specific farm plans for the long rains. The tool provides farmers with free recommendations on the most resilient and profitable crops for their area and soil type, alongside expected input needs and yield potential. For a one-off administrative fee of Sh500, farmers can also access full-season agronomist guidance, crop management support, and contingency plans for early or late rains.
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“FarmBizAfrica reaches more than three million farmers every month, and 55 per cent of our readers, subscribers, and followers are in Kenya,” said CEO Jethro Tieman. “That made it clear that Kenya should be the first market to launch HarvestMAX.”
The platform calculates expected earnings, input costs, and likely profits for each recommended crop, creating a permanent account that farmers can revisit throughout the season. It requires no app download, offers week-by-week guidance from planting to harvest, and allows farmers to print full crop guides for offline use.
“We know farmers can earn several times more from the same land simply by choosing the right crops,” said Ford. “Many farmers make as little as Sh50,000 per acre in a season, yet there are viable options that can earn Sh250,000, Sh500,000, or more when crop choice and extension support are aligned.”
FarmBizAfrica says HarvestMAX builds on 15 years of working directly with farmers through training, data collection, and agricultural publishing.
“What we have consistently seen is that farmers perform best when they match crops to weather, receive practical support on how to grow them, and focus on crops that sell easily and earn well,” said Tieman. “That is exactly what this tool is designed to do.”
HarvestMAX is now available to Kenyan farmers ahead of the 2026 long rains, with free crop recommendations provided to all farmers who open an account.
