AI and the Tanzanian Farmer: Can Technology Keep Up With a Changing Climate?

When the weather changes, farmers need more than rain-they need accurate and reliable information.

Every morning, a farmer wakes up and looks at the sky, wondering, “Will it really rain today?” or “Should I plant today, or should I wait?”

There is a famous Swahili saying: “Dalili ya mvua ni mawingu,” meaning “the signs of rain are in the clouds.” For more than two decades, farmers have relied on experience, environmental signs and conventional weather forecasts to make decisions about preparing their farms and planting their crops.

But changing climate patterns are making some of these decisions increasingly difficult. Rain can arrive late, fall heavily within a short period, or disappear when crops need it most.

And this is where new technology is beginning to enter the picture.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)-a technology that in recent years has become widely known through chatbots such as ChatGPT-is now being used for other purposes, including analyzing weather information, satellite images and agricultural data to help farmers make decisions about their farms.

Tanzania has already begun taking steps towards such applications. Tanzanian innovators are developing systems that combine AI, satellite data and weather information to provide insights that can help farmers understand what is happening on their farms and what may happen next.

But one big question remains:

Can AI really help the average African farmer adapt to climate change-or will it remain a technology accessible only to a few?

Karatibu is a Tanzanian farmer who grows maize and beans. According to Climate KIC, he grew up learning to predict rainfall through signs such as clouds, wind and even the movement of ants. But he says changing weather patterns have made some of these traditional methods less reliable.

He later came across Rada360, a Tanzanian company that uses satellite data and AI for precision agriculture. Its platform provides services including weather forecasting, crop-health monitoring, soil analysis, drought and flood warnings, and yield prediction.

This brings us to a deeper question:

What happens when traditional farming knowledge meets artificial intelligence?

For some Tanzanian farmers, artificial intelligence is still unfamiliar.

Andrew Kikala, a farmer from Bagamoyo, says he does not know much about AI. Although he owns a smartphone, he does not use it for farming.

“I don’t know much about AI. I’m getting older, and I don’t really follow technology. I have a smartphone, but I don’t use it for farming.”
— Andrew Kikala, Bagamoyo

For Elisante Kavishe from Kilimanjaro, technology has never been part of his farming routine. He does not own a smartphone and says his experience has been enough to help him farm successfully.

“I don’t have a smartphone. I have been farming for a long time and I am successful. I don’t believe technology can teach me how to farm.”
— Elisante Kavishe, Kilimanjaro

In Mbeya, Joy Nnko says farmers still rely heavily on the farming seasons.

“When it is the planting season, even if technology doesn’t say so, we just plant.”
— Joy Nnko, Mbeya

But Sara Kisetu from Arusha has already heard about AI and tried using it. Her experience, however, has not completely convinced her.

“I have heard about AI. I have tried using it, but somehow it confuses me.”
— Sara Kisetu, Arusha

For now, Sara says she is not fully convinced by the technology and would rather wait and see how widely it becomes adopted.

These experiences point to a gap between the development of agricultural technology and its adoption by farmers. While AI-powered tools are being developed to provide weather and agricultural information, awareness, access and trust remain important challenges.

The technology may be advancing quickly. But for many farmers, traditional knowledge and experience are still the most trusted tools in the field.

And perhaps the most important question is no longer whether AI can help farmers-but whether farmers are ready to trust it.

Also read the next Article called; AI Is Helping Fight Climate Change. But Is AI Itself Harming the Planet?

For millions of people across Africa, the internet is no longer a luxury. It can mean access to education, customers, banking, information and work. But what happens when the nearest fibre cable is too far away, or the mobile network simply does not reach you? This is where Starlink enters the picture. starlink web

Instead of waiting for cables and towers to reach every community, Elon Musk’s SpaceX is taking internet connectivity into the sky using a growing network of satellites in low Earth orbit.

Across Africa, the idea is gaining ground. By June 2026, Starlink was commercially available in 26 African markets, with about 300,000 customers on the continent. But the numbers also tell another story: Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Zambia account for roughly 64% of those subscribers.

So Starlink is growing. But can it grow into a mass-market internet service for Africa? space in Africa

The promise is simple

Starlink’s biggest advantage is not necessarily that it is faster than every other internet service. It is that it can reach places where traditional infrastructure struggles. A fibre network requires infrastructure on the ground. Mobile internet depends on network coverage and other infrastructure.

Satellite internet takes a different route. The connection comes from space. That could make Starlink particularly useful for remote schools, farms, businesses, health facilities, lodges and communities where building traditional broadband infrastructure is difficult or expensive.

And the performance can be impressive. Across the African markets where Starlink operates, median download speeds have exceeded 100 Mbps, according to a June 2026 analysis based on Starlink and PeeringDB data.

But there is a problem. Connecting people is one thing. Making the connection affordable is another.

The price question

Starlink is not simply a monthly internet bill. There is usually an upfront cost for the equipment, followed by a monthly subscription. Take Kenya as an example. Starlink currently lists Residential Lite at KES 4,000 per month, while its standard Residential plan is KES 6,500. Hardware is an additional upfront cost. starlink Kenya

In Nigeria, Starlink lists residential service from NGN 57,000 per month, with hardware starting from NGN 318,000 in selected areas.

These prices do not automatically make Starlink expensive. That depends on what consumers are getting and what alternative internet services cost in the same market. And this is where the African story becomes complicated. Nigeria starlink

Better internet does not always mean cheaper internet

For someone living in an urban area with affordable fibre or strong 4G/5G coverage, Starlink may offer little reason to switch. Why pay for satellite equipment when a cheaper local connection already works?

But for someone living far from reliable broadband infrastructure, the calculation is different.

For that person, Starlink may not be competing with fibre. It may be competing with no reliable internet at all. That is where Starlink’s real opportunity in Africa may lie. Not necessarily replacing existing internet providers but filling the gaps they cannot economically reach.

Africa is not one market

The numbers already show this. Starlink has grown rapidly in some countries while remaining relatively small in others. In Kenya, for example, its estimated share of the local ISP market was still only around 0.9% as of the June 2026 analysis.

That tells us something important.

Starlink’s success will not be determined by technology alone.

It will depend on income, competition, regulation, infrastructure and, perhaps most importantly, affordability. There is another challenge: capacity. As more people subscribe in the same area, network congestion can affect performance. Some African markets have already experienced capacity constraints and waiting lists.So even an internet service that comes from space still has a very earthly problem:

How many people can it serve at once?

And what about Tanzania?

If Starlink expands further into Tanzania, the important question should not simply be:

“Is Starlink fast?” We should ask: Who can afford it?

Would it make sense for a household in Dar es Salaam that already has fibre?

So, will Starlink succeed in Africa?

The evidence suggests there is a real market for it. It has already expanded across dozens of African markets and attracted hundreds of thousands of customers. But success should not be measured only by how many satellites are above Africa.

It should be measured by how many people below those satellites can actually afford to connect. Starlink may solve one of Africa’s biggest connectivity problems: reach. But it still has to solve another:

affordability.

Because the future of African internet access may not depend on whether the technology can reach the most remote village. It may depend on whether the people living there can afford to use it.

The internet may be coming from space. But the question of who gets to use it remains firmly on the ground.

Africa has never been short of talent.

From music and film to fashion, sport, technology, art and storytelling, young Africans have always found ways to create with what they have.

But for generations, having talent was not enough. A talented young person could sing in a neighborhood, design clothes from a small room, make films with borrowed equipment or tell powerful stories and still remain unknown beyond their community.

The problem was not always the talent. Sometimes, the world simply could not see it.

Before the internet, the gate was smaller

For many young Africans, reaching a global audience once depended on a handful of gatekeepers: television stations, record labels, publishers, producers, competitions or international networks.

If they did not open the door, going global could feel almost impossible. Then the internet changed the equation. A phone became more than a phone. It became a camera, a classroom, a marketplace and, for some, a doorway to the world. Today, a young creator in Dar es Salaam can publish a video and potentially reach someone in Lagos, London or Los Angeles without first getting permission from a television executive.

Platforms such as YouTube, TikTok and Instagram have created new spaces for African creators to build audiences and businesses. But there is another question.

Has the internet really levelled the playing field?

The talent we see may only be part of the story

Scroll through social media and you will find African creators documenting food, fashion, travel, beauty, comedy, culture and everyday life. Some have turned their audiences into businesses.

Others have built careers around their creativity. But perhaps we are still seeing only a fraction of what Africa has to offer. There may be a filmmaker who has never had access to professional equipment. A designer who cannot afford to produce at scale. A musician who has talent but no recording space. A storyteller with something important to say but no platform to reach an audience. And a young innovator with a promising idea but no network, mentorship or funding to develop it.

The internet opened the window. But not everyone has been able to walk through the door.

Talent needs an ecosystem

This is where the conversation needs to move beyond motivation. Telling young people to “follow your dreams” is easy. Building an environment where those dreams can actually grow is much harder. Talent needs skills. It needs access to tools. It needs mentorship, networks, financing and opportunities to practice. And increasingly, it needs digital skills.

Africa’s employment challenge makes this even more important. The Mastercard Foundation’s 2026 Africa Youth Employment Outlook estimates that about 304 million young people were working in 2025, while the continent continues to face the challenge of creating enough meaningful and dignified work for its growing youth population. The opportunity, therefore, is not simply to find young people jobs.

It is also to help young people turn what they can do into something the world can recognize and value.

A new generation of global creators

The creator economy is changing what a career can look like. A young person does not necessarily need to wait for a company to hire them before they begin creating value. They can teach. They can design. They can tell stories. They can build a community. They can sell a product. They can work with people in another country without leaving home.

But access to the internet alone does not guarantee success. Africa still faces major gaps in connectivity, affordability and digital skills, meaning the digital opportunity is not equally accessible to everyone. The World Bank has also identified technological transformation as an important part of creating better jobs for Africa’s growing populations.

So the next challenge is not simply getting young people online.

It is helping them know what to do once they get there.

Creating pathways to opportunity

This is the space organizations such as Inua Hub are trying to occupy.

Inua Hub says its mission is to empower young people, women and small businesses through digital skills, tools and networks needed to participate in the digital economy. Its work is organized around digital empowerment, entrepreneurship and innovation, global pathways, and sports, culture and community.

The idea is simple but important:

Talent should not stop at potential. It should have somewhere to go.

According to figures published by Inua Hub, the organization has reached more than 2,500 young people and supported more than 120 businesses, alongside work with women, girls and civil-society organizations. That kind of work points to a bigger question for Africa.

What happens when we stop looking at young people only as beneficiaries who need help—and start seeing them as creators, entrepreneurs, innovators and professionals who need the right platforms to compete?

Africa does not need to wait for the world to discover its talent

The next global filmmaker could be in Accra. The next major fashion designer could be in Nairobi. The next influential storyteller could be in Dar es Salaam. The next technology entrepreneur could be building something in Kigali, Lagos or Lusaka. We do not know their names yet. And that may be the point. Africa may not have a shortage of talent.

It may have a shortage of systems that allow enough of that talent to grow, be seen and reach the world.

The internet has given young Africans a window. Now the challenge is to make sure they have the skills, platforms, networks and opportunities to walk through it.

Because talent can be born anywhere. But opportunity should not depend on where you were born.

The warning can come days, weeks or even months before the rain.

Weather agencies watch the oceans. Satellites watch the clouds. Scientists study rainfall patterns. Governments issue alerts and communities are told to prepare. But when water finally enters a home, carries away a road or cuts off a neighborhood, one question remains:

If we knew the risk was coming, why were so many people still caught in it?

That question is becoming harder to ignore as El Niño strengthens and the world watches another season of extreme weather.

The World Meteorological Organization WMO says the current El Niño is firmly established and is expected to become very strong in the coming months, with almost a 100% likelihood of persisting through February 2027. The event is expected to shift rainfall and temperature patterns across different parts of the world, increasing the risk of floods, drought and extreme heat.

For the Greater Horn of Africa, the warning is particularly relevant. The region is expected to be warmer and wetter than usual in the final quarter of 2026, with Tanzania among the countries where October-to-December rainfall contributes significantly to annual rainfall.

But there is something important to understand.

El Niño is a warning about changing odds. It is not a prediction that every place will flood.

And that difference matters.

A flood is not just about rain

When people hear “flood”, the first thing that often comes to mind is heavy rainfall.

And yes, rain matters. But rainfall alone does not explain why one neighborhood remains dry while another one, sometimes only a few kilometers away, is underwater.

Where people build matters. Where rivers flow matters. The condition of drainage systems matters. So do wetlands, roads, soil, land use and how quickly authorities and residents can respond.

In simple terms, a disaster happens when a hazard meets people and infrastructure that are exposed and vulnerable to it. That is why some places can experience flooding repeatedly. The rain may change.

But the vulnerability remains.

A neighborhood built in a low-lying area does not move when the rainy season ends. A blocked drainage channel does not clear itself because a weather warning has been issued. And a family living beside a river may receive the same warning as everyone else but still have nowhere affordable to go.

We have seen this before

Across many cities, some locations have become almost familiar names whenever serious flooding occurs. The pattern can be frustratingly predictable. Rain comes. Water rises. Roads disappear. Homes are flooded. People are rescued. The water goes down. Life slowly returns. Then the next rainy season arrives. Reuters institute

The question is no longer simply “How much rain fell?”

“Why does the same risk keep returning to the same people?”

That is particularly important for rapidly growing African cities such as Dar es Salaam, where urban expansion, drainage, land-use changes and settlement patterns can shape how rainfall turns into flooding. And this is where climate change adds another layer to an already difficult problem.

Climate change does not mean every flood has one cause

It is tempting to blame every major flood on climate change or El Niño. But climate science is more complicated than that. El Niño changes large-scale atmospheric and oceanic conditions. Climate change changes the background conditions in which weather events occur. Local geography and human activity determine how those events affect a particular community.

So when a flood happens, journalists should resist the easy headline:

“El Niño caused the flood. "The better question is:

What actually triggered this flood, and did climate conditions make the risk worse?

That distinction is visible in Nepal. Nepal

The devastating August 2026 disaster along the Nepal-Tibet border was not simply an El Niño flood. It followed the collapse of part of a glacier, sending ice, rock and debris into a river system and creating a catastrophic flash flood. Scientists have said that warming temperatures and changing conditions in high mountains may contribute to the destabilization of glaciers and slopes, although climate change cannot be described as the sole immediate trigger of that particular collapse.

That is an important lesson.

Climate disasters do not always have a single culprit.

Sometimes the danger is created by the interaction between a changing climate and a place that is already vulnerable.

So what is the point of an early warning?

This may be the most uncomfortable question. If scientists can warn us that a strong El Niño is developing, what happens next? A warning only becomes useful when it changes behavior.

For a farmer, it could mean changing planting decisions. For a city, it could mean clearing drainage channels, protecting critical infrastructure and preparing evacuation routes. For a family living in a flood-prone area, it could mean knowing when to move, where to go and what to carry. For authorities, it means acting before the water arrives, not only after it has entered people’s homes.

The WMO describes seasonal climate forecasts as a window for early action and decision-making. But an early warning cannot move a house away from a floodplain. It cannot unblock a drainage channel. It cannot repair a weak bridge. And it cannot give a family a safe place to relocate.

That part requires preparation.

The question Tanzania should be asking

As El Niño strengthens and Tanzania prepares for a wetter-than-normal final quarter of the year, the question should not simply be:

“Will it rain?”

The answer is obvious, the better question is:

“What have we done differently because we knew the rain could be heavier?”

Because if the same river floods the same community every year, eventually the flood itself stops being the surprise. The surprise is that we are still surprised. A forecast can tell us that the water is coming. But it cannot move a house out of a floodplain, unblock a drainage channel or build a safer bridge. Plan for El nino

That part is up to us. Because the real challenge is no longer only predicting when the water will come. It is making sure that when it does, fewer people have to run for their lives.