Bʏ Mᴀsɪʟᴀ Kᴀɴʏɪɴɢɪ
November 27, 2025
Across global agriculture and increasingly within Kenya’s floriculture sector, investors continue to place enormous bets on artificial intelligence.
From predictive crop modelling to climate optimisation, AI is expected to redefine how flowers are grown, graded, and delivered to market. Yet, recent surveys reveal a more complex reality: while enthusiasm runs high at the executive level, day-to-day adoption on farms remains stubbornly slow.
Statisticians tracking the use of digital tools on production sites found that the share of farms actively using AI in core operations such as growing, monitoring, or service delivery has remained flat or even declined in recent months. For an industry projected to channel trillions of shillings globally into digital transformation, this stagnation is a warning sign.
A major gap lies in AI’s limited ability, so far, to seamlessly connect production with the market. While growers collect vast amounts of data on crop cycles, climate conditions, and quality metrics, most of this information does not yet integrate with real-time market signals. As a result, farms struggle to align harvests with price trends, buyer demand, and logistics capacity, leaving a disconnect between what is produced and what the market actually wants.
Why the disconnect? Many farm owners believe in the promise of AI, but employees often lack the training, confidence, or clear workflow integration needed to use the tools effectively. In Kenya’s floriculture hubs from Naivasha to Mt. Kenya, growers cite cost barriers, unreliable connectivity, and limited technical support as real constraints.
Yet the potential remains enormous. As climate pressures intensify and global markets demand greater consistency, AI could become one of the sector’s strongest competitive advantages. The challenge now is not convincing growers that AI matters; it’s ensuring adoption becomes practical, inclusive, and meaningful at farm level.