Digital agriculture could unlock up to USD 500 billion in additional agricultural GDP annually across low- and middle-income countries—if governments move beyond strategy and invest in delivery systems that scale proven solutions.
This is the central message of a new report, From Strategy to Scale: Why Delivery Matters in Digital Agriculture, released by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in collaboration with Precision Development (PxD). The report highlights the growing role of Digital Agriculture Units (DAUs) in helping governments translate ambitious digital strategies into measurable impact for smallholder farmers.
Across Africa and other developing regions, agriculture remains the backbone of livelihoods and food security. While many governments have adopted digital agriculture roadmaps, the report finds that too few have invested in the institutional capacity required to implement them effectively.
“Across countries, we see the same persistent gap between strategy and delivery—not because plans are weak, but because dedicated delivery capacity is missing,” said Zoë Karl-Waithaka, Managing Director and Partner at BCG Nairobi. “Digital Agriculture Units are designed to coordinate actors, align incentives, troubleshoot implementation challenges, and drive measurable results.”
Digital tools transforming smallholder farming
Simple digital innovations—including SMS-based advisory platforms, interactive voice response systems and mobile-enabled farmer registries—are already improving farmers’ access to information and services. As these systems mature, more advanced technologies such as AI-driven weather forecasting and digital credit scoring are enabling precision farming and personalised advisory services.
In East Africa, for example, PxD’s Virtual Agronomist platform delivers digital advisory services at approximately one-tenth the cost of traditional extension models, while boosting yields by between 1.4 and 1.9 times for crops such as maize, rice, sunflower and sorghum.
Yet despite such promising results, adoption of digital agriculture tools among smallholder farmers globally remains below 15%. The report attributes this to chronic underinvestment and weak delivery systems. Between 2019 and 2021, OECD countries invested just USD 17 billion—about 2% of total agricultural spending—in digital infrastructure.
As a result, many promising pilot projects fail to scale, leaving millions of farmers—particularly women and marginalised groups—without access to transformative technologies.
Why Digital Agriculture Units matter
The report identifies DAUs as a practical solution to bridging the strategy-delivery gap. These dedicated teams, embedded within governments or national programmes, focus on four core functions:
- Investment-oriented planning
- Stakeholder coordination
- Delivery support
- Accountability and performance tracking
However, the effectiveness of DAUs depends heavily on how they are designed and positioned within government structures.
The report outlines five key design dimensions:
Institutional anchoring is key, as placement within an agriculture ministry can support sector alignment, while anchoring in central government bodies or independent units may provide stronger cross-sector authority and faster implementation.
Further, reporting line where direct reporting to senior political leadership could accelerate reforms and maintain momentum, especially during early implementation phases.
Delivery mandate: DAUs may coordinate, implement, or adopt hybrid models depending on national capacity. Over time, most evolve into blended coordination-and-delivery models.
Jurisdictional scope: In federal or devolved systems, strong sub-national engagement is essential. Effective DAUs also actively engage private sector actors through public-private partnerships and co-investment platforms.
Resourcing model: Hybrid Project Management Units combining civil servants and embedded technical experts can accelerate delivery while building long-term institutional capacity.
Countries such as Ethiopia, India and Benin are already experimenting with different DAU models, embedding digital delivery structures within ministries or creating cross-sector coordination mechanisms to oversee shared digital public goods such as farmer registries and data systems.
“Digital tools can only deliver impact for farmers when they are embedded in systems built to scale,” said Habtamu Yesigat, Director of Programmes for Ethiopia at PxD. “Digital Agriculture Units provide the delivery backbone governments need to move from isolated pilots to national platforms that reach millions of smallholder farmers.”
From vision to execution
With climate change, population growth and food insecurity intensifying pressure on agricultural systems, the report concludes that the next frontier is not strategy—but sustained execution.
Unlocking the full value of digital agriculture, it argues, will require clear mandates, long-term financing and strong institutional capacity to coordinate actors and maintain accountability.
As African governments invest in climate-smart and technology-driven food systems, the establishment of well-designed Digital Agriculture Units could determine whether digital innovation remains confined to pilot projects—or becomes a transformative force for millions of farmers across the continent.