Where the Story Begins
Brastorne’s story is one of ambition, resilience, and vision. Founded in Botswana, the company was born out of a desire to bridge one of Africa’s most pressing divides, the gap between rural communities and the digital world. While global conversations about digital innovation often focused on high-speed internet and smartphone applications, millions of Africans remained excluded, unable to access the very tools designed to transform their livelihoods.
Brastorne set out to rewrite this narrative. It began by converting simple mobile technologies into tools of empowerment, giving farmers access to information and opportunities that were once out of reach. Over time, this mission grew into something much bigger, the creation of a digital ecosystem where Africa’s farmers could thrive, compete, and adapt to a changing world.
From Growth to Global Recognition
Brastorne’s early platforms quickly gained traction. Farmers across Botswana, Guinea, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia and Cameroon embraced the chance to access agricultural tips, market connections, and community networks through basic channels. Fast forward to 2025, Brastorne has reached more than 5.3 million people. Our solutions were no longer pilot experiments, they were lifelines, proving that even in environments of low connectivity, technology could transform lives.
Awards and recognition followed, from global challenges to innovation prizes, but what mattered most was the trust built among farmers. This trust paved the way for our next bold step, developing the mAgri WebApp, a platform that could harness the potential of artificial intelligence to serve farmers in real-time.
The mAgri WebApp
The mAgri WebApp represents the next steps we are taking to empower the economically disadvantaged. Built for farmers with entry-level smartphones and limited connectivity, it is designed to be lightweight, intuitive, and accessible. Yet beneath its simple surface lies the sophistication of artificial intelligence. Farmers can ask questions in their own languages, Setswana, Bemba, Nyanja, and more through text, voice, or even by uploading an image. The platform responds with advice that is not generic, but deeply contextual and practical.
Imagine a farmer in Zambia noticing a troubling change in their groundnut plants. Instead of waiting weeks for an agricultural extension officer, they open the WebApp, describe the symptoms in their native tongue, or upload a photo. Within moments, the AI provides possible diagnoses and recommended actions. If the issue is too complex for the AI to solve alone, it escalates seamlessly to a human agronomist. This balance between machine learning and human expertise ensures both speed and accuracy, and most importantly, builds confidence in the tool.
The Intelligence Behind the App
The WebApp’s strength lies in the ecosystem of intelligence it brings together. Its core is a fine-tuned Large Language Model, adapted specifically for African languages and dialects, but intelligence is not drawn from language models alone. The system integrates live weather data to inform planting and harvesting decisions, market intelligence to give farmers leverage in negotiations, and pest and disease surveillance to identify threats before they spread. Historical agricultural knowledge, combined with conversational farmer inputs, enriches this model further, creating a loop where every interaction improves the AI’s contextual accuracy.
This fusion of predictive and generative AI means the WebApp does more than answer questions. It forecasts risks, anticipates challenges, and adapts responses to the unique conditions of each farmer. By doing so, it transforms data into real-time intelligence that can save crops, protect livestock, and improve livelihoods.
Transforming Lives, One Farmer at a Time
The introduction of the mAgri WebApp will reshape how farmers interact with technology. For many, farming decisions that once involved guesswork will now rely on actionable insights. The platform’s inclusivity ensures that women farmers, who form the majority of Brastorne’s user base, are not left behind. They gain equal access to mentorship, markets, and technical advice, helping close gender gaps in agriculture. The ripple effects extend to entire households, where increased incomes improve food security, support education, and strengthen resilience against shocks.
The WebApp will enable farmers who learn new techniques through the app often to share with neighbors, creating informal networks of learning and innovation. Over time, entire communities will begin to farm more efficiently, waste less, and earn more. The impact multiplies far beyond individual users.
Where Brastorne Wants to Go
The immediate goal is ambitious yet achievable, reaching 20,000 smallholder farmers in the and indirectly benefiting over 100,000 people, but Brastorne’s vision stretches further. It aims to scale across the continent, embedding the WebApp into the daily lives of millions of farmers. Each interaction builds a growing database of localized agricultural intelligence, which can serve not only farmers but also policymakers, researchers, and innovators. This knowledge base could become one of Africa’s most valuable resources, enabling smarter interventions and shaping agricultural policy across nations.
A Glimpse Into the Future
Brastorne’s mAgri WebApp will be launching soon and represent the future of African agriculture, one where technology is not distant or foreign, but woven into the rhythms of everyday life. It demonstrates that AI, when designed with local realities in mind, can be a trusted companion in the fields, one that speaks your language, understands your challenges, and helps you thrive.
