This field note summarises what we heard in youth listening sessions on digital tools for farming in southern Malawi. Rather than testing a ready-made app, we invited young farmers to walk us through how they currently make decisions on weather, soil health and income, and only then explored what digital tools would need to do differently to be genuinely useful in their daily lives. The outcomes cluster around four areas: what youth ask for most, the barriers they face, their immediate priorities, and how they think digital support should evolve over the coming years.
The reflections below combine what young farmers shared in group discussions and co-design exercises with our own observations on the ground. They are not a statistical survey, but a grounded snapshot that helps us and our partners design tools and pilots that reflect the realities of southern Malawi – rather than assumptions made from far away.
What young farmers most often ask for from digital tools
When we asked youth what they would most like digital tools to help them with, their answers were strikingly consistent across different villages and groups. They did not start with abstract platforms or cutting-edge technologies. Instead, they went straight to a handful of concrete decisions that shape every season. At the top of the list was very local, short-term weather advice tied to clear actions: when to plant, when to replant after false starts, when to apply fertiliser and when to prepare for floods or dry spells. Many stressed that this information needs to arrive in local languages, using familiar terms, rather than only in English.
Soil health came next. Youth asked for simple, practical guidance that fits tiny budgets and the crops they already grow: how to use manure and compost more effectively, when intercropping makes sense, which mulching or erosion control practices are realistic on their plots. Rather than detailed lab reports, they wanted clear, context-specific suggestions they could act on with the resources they actually have. Linked to this were strong requests for better visibility on prices and buyers. Young farmers talked about wanting more timely information on prices for key crops and livestock, and easier ways to reach several buyers instead of depending on a single trader.
Many participants also saw a role for very simple tools that help them plan and track farm income and costs – basic record-keeping and cash-flow tracking they could use on paper and phones in parallel. They connected this with ideas for diversifying income: growing off-season crops, keeping small livestock, adding simple value through drying or milling, or offering services such as spraying and mechanised land preparation. Across all of these topics, they emphasised that content should be short, visual or audio-based and easy to understand for different literacy levels, and that the most useful tools would allow for two-way communication with trusted experts or peers rather than one-way broadcasts.
Barriers that make digital tools hard to use
Alongside these requests, young farmers described a set of very practical barriers that limit how far even the best designed tools can go. Many youth in southern Malawi still do not own a smartphone and rely on basic or shared family phones. Data bundles and airtime are expensive relative to their income, which makes frequent app use or video streaming unrealistic. Network coverage is patchy, and charging a phone can require long walks or paid services. These constraints are not abstract “access issues”; they show up as missed messages, tools that only work part-time and services that quietly drop out of daily life.
Digital literacy is another barrier. Some youth are comfortable navigating apps and digital financial services, but many others have had limited exposure and do not feel confident clicking through complex menus or entering sensitive information. Language and format compound this: information is often presented in English and in dense text, with little adaptation to local ways of talking about farming. Past experiences with short-lived projects, scams or tools that did not match actual needs have also eroded trust. Several participants noted that they have seen digital initiatives appear and disappear without explanation, making them cautious about investing time or money in new services.
Beyond technology-specific issues, youth pointed to structural constraints that no app can solve on its own. Limited access to land, weak collateral for loans and restrictive gender norms all shape how young people – and especially young women – can use digital tools in practice. For example, some young women described having only intermittent access to a family phone, or needing permission to travel to meetings where tools are introduced. Any digital work that ignores these realities risks reinforcing existing inequalities rather than reducing them.
Immediate priorities: what youth say they need now
When we shifted the conversation to the next one to three seasons, youth focused on a set of priorities that are both concrete and implementable. A recurring theme was the need to design for basic phones first. For many, SMS, USSD and interactive voice response, combined with community radio, are far more realistic channels than smartphone-only apps. Content in local languages, the option to listen to messages rather than read them and the ability to tolerate intermittent connectivity all emerged as essential design criteria rather than optional extras.
Young farmers also repeatedly stressed that information alone is not enough. They spoke about the need for “advice plus access”: weather and soil messages that are directly linked to where and how they can obtain inputs, services, finance and buyers. Simple, carefully tested user journeys matter just as much. Youth emphasised that menus and flows should involve only a few clear steps with minimal text, and that these should be tested and refined with youth groups before anyone talks about scaling beyond pilot sites.
Another immediate priority is building human support into digital services. Many groups suggested training and paying youth “digital intermediaries” within clubs, cooperatives or farmer organisations who can help peers use tools, interpret messages and relay feedback. Participants also highlighted the importance of approaches that work for young women, including safe meeting spaces, women-only groups where appropriate and time slots that fit around childcare and other responsibilities. Finally, they underlined the need for long-term hosting, maintenance and user support so that tools do not disappear as soon as a project ends – a pattern that has undermined trust in the past.
Forward-looking needs for the next five to ten years
Looking further ahead, youth articulated more strategic ideas about how digital agriculture should evolve in Malawi. Several groups imagined a future where they no longer have to juggle multiple separate apps, each dealing with a narrow slice of farming. Instead, they described integrated platforms that bring advisory services, input ordering, finance and market access together around a single farmer identity they can control. At the same time, they were clear that the interfaces for such platforms would still need to remain extremely simple to be usable on basic devices and in low-connectivity settings.
Participants also saw potential in better data – from remote sensing, local weather stations and AI models – if it can be translated into highly local, personalised recommendations delivered through the channels they already use. But they were equally insistent that youth should not only be users of such systems. Many expressed interest in becoming paid service providers themselves: as drone operators, “plant doctors”, machinery coordinators, data collectors or digital trainers in their own communities. They saw this not only as an income opportunity, but also as a way to make sure tools stay grounded in real farming practices.
To make those ideas possible, youth emphasised the importance of stronger partnerships between mobile operators, agribusinesses, banks, government agencies and farmer organisations. They argued that youth-designed solutions need to plug into real systems, payment flows and support structures rather than sitting at the margins. Climate resilience and nature-positive practices should, in their view, be embedded directly into all tools – with drought, heat and flood-smart options and practices that protect soils, water and biodiversity presented as the default, not as an add-on. Finally, many called for continuous co-design and feedback mechanisms where youth regularly review and improve digital services, instead of being consulted once at the beginning or end of projects.
What this means for ulimi.labs and partners
For ulimi.labs, these listening sessions confirmed that digital work only makes sense if it is anchored in the real decisions and constraints of young farmers. Many of the outcomes youth described are not primarily about new technology, but about how existing tools are framed, governed and financed. They point towards long-term partnerships that combine youth voices, grounded field work and careful use of data, rather than short-lived pilots.
In the short term, we plan to prototype a small number of basic-phone-first services with youth groups in southern Malawi – for example, tightly scoped weather and soil advice flows linked to local input and service providers – and to document what it takes to keep them trusted and affordable. In the longer term, we are interested in working with organisations that see youth not only as beneficiaries but also as co-designers and service providers in their own right. We share these notes not as a finished blueprint, but as an invitation to build on what youth in southern Malawi have already articulated.
If you are exploring similar questions in other regions – or are interested in collaborating on thoughtful digital work with farmers and youth in Malawi – we would be happy to connect.