AGX AI in Q1 2026: Building the Knowledge Base for Responsible Agricultural AI

At DevGlobal, we believe that AI’s transformative potential in agriculture will only be realized if it is built responsibly, with small-scale producers at the center. That conviction is what drives AGX AI — our initiative focused on accelerating inclusive, tech-enabled transformation in agrifood systems across Africa and Asia, developed in partnership with Dev-Afrique Development Advisors and Athena Infonomics.

The first quarter of 2026 has been a productive one. Here’s a look at what the AGX AI community has been building, publishing, and contributing to across the global agrifood conversation.

Expanding the Evidence Base: The AGX AI Discussion Paper Series

The AGX AI Discussion Paper series examines what it will take to responsibly scale AI advisory for small-scale producers across Africa and Asia. The series is organized around a core taxonomy of AI advisory for farmers — covering data, localization, delivery, access, policy, and risk — and draws on expertise from across the AGX AI partner network.

Three foundational papers were released in 2025:

• Building a Shared Data Corpus for Equitable Agricultural AI (Athena Infonomics) explores what it takes to build agricultural data that genuinely reflects local contexts and farmer needs, making the case for shared, locally tuned data corpora as the foundation for equitable AI.
• Localized Agri-LLMs: Exploring Low-Power, Low-Cost Models for SSPs in Africa (Dev-Afrique Development Advisors) examines how affordable, accessible AI models can be designed specifically for the operational realities of small-scale producers across the African continent.
• A Look at Benchmarking Initiatives for GenAI-Powered Advisory in Agriculture (Athena Infonomics) surveys the emerging benchmarking landscape and asks a fundamental question: how do we evaluate whether AI advisory tools are actually trustworthy?

In 2026, we are building on this foundation with seven additional papers currently in development, addressing localization, farmer data rights, delivery channels, equitable access, policy frameworks, geospatial AI, and risk management. Taken together, the full series will represent one of the most comprehensive publicly available knowledge bases on responsible AI advisory for smallholder farmers.

Read the first three papers and sign up to contribute to the series on the AGX AI website.

On the Ground: Representing the Agrifood Perspective at Global Convenings

AGX AI has been an active presence at two of the year’s most important international gatherings so far.

At the India AI Impact Summit, our team joined global leaders in AI policy and innovation to advocate for inclusive approaches that center smallholder farmers and low- and middle-income country contexts,ensuring that the Global South is not an afterthought in shaping the future of AI governance.

At World Agri-Tech San Francisco, one of the sector’s biggest annual stages, we connected with investors, innovators, and implementers, spotlighting how AI is reshaping agricultural advisory services, market access, and food systems resilience across the Global South.

These convenings matter, not just for visibility, but for ensuring that the priorities of smallholder farmers are part of the conversations where the direction of agricultural AI is being set.

Hear From the Fellows: The First AGX AI Community Blog

The AGX AI Fellowship brings together practitioners and researchers from across the globe who are working on some of the most pressing questions in AI-enabled agrifood transformation. We’re proud to share that the fellowship is progressing strongly — and that our fellows have launched the first blog on the agx.community platform.

The inaugural post comes from fellows Mercy Mwangi and Pratibha Kiragi, who explore what genuinely inclusive AI-driven advisory requires in the Global South. Their argument is a grounding one: that trust, traditional knowledge, and on-the-ground complexity must come before technology. It’s exactly the kind of perspective the AGX AI community was built to surface.

Read the post on the AGX AI website.

Coming Soon: Grounded Intelligence, the AGX AI Podcast

Our podcast series, Grounded Intelligence, is in development and launching soon. Each episode will feature the researchers and practitioners behind our discussion papers — digging into what they found, what surprised them, and what it means for the future of AI in agriculture.

Follow AGX AI on LinkedIn for updates on the first episode drop.

Get Involved

AGX AI is built on the belief that the most important work in this space happens in collaboration. As the initiative grows, we’re actively seeking partners to help shape the next phase — whether through co-hosting events and learning exchanges, contributing expertise to discussion paper working groups, or supporting the development of the knowledge series.

If you’re working on inclusive agrifood transformation, responsible AI, or digital infrastructure for small-scale producers, we’d welcome the conversation.

Reach out to agx@dev.global to explore partnership opportunities.