The data problem for AI in African agriculture is not a lack of data.
It is a structural absence of structured data — the kind that AI agents can query, validate, and reason with.
The raw material exists. It has existed for over a century. It sits in the public domain, digitized by libraries and archives, waiting to be structured.
What the public domain contains
The British East Africa Protectorate agricultural reports from 1910-1922 document, county by county, which crops grew where, what yields looked like in drought years versus good years, which soil types supported what cultivation, and which traditional practices survived contact with colonial agricultural extension.
