By Fatma M. Omar
MSc Student, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology
Just a few months ago, AgriGuard was born, not in a fancy boardroom or lab, but in the middle of an intense, deadline-driven AI/ML hackathon where our team of curious, young minds dared to ask: What if we used AI to fight fake news in Agri-Biotech? As one of the top three winners in the Hackathon competition, our team got a spot on the big stage at the FINAS Summit 2025, a milestone that affirmed just how urgent and relevant our mission is: to fight agricultural misinformation using artificial intelligence.
I’m one of the co-leads of AgriGuard, a youth-led startup built by young African scientists, techies, and communicators. We created it not just because we could, but because we had to. Across Africa, misinformation around agricultural biotechnology, GMOs, and climate-resilient technologies is costing farmers real income, real yields, and real trust in science. As recent graduates, we found ourselves disheartened by a system that teaches us science but then sidelines our careers because society “isn’t ready” to accept it. So we decided to make the society ready. Well, if the system won’t open the door, we’ll just build a new one, and that’s exactly what AgriGuard is. It’s our digital megaphone in the war on agricultural misinformation. Think of it as the agriculture immune system Africa didn’t know it needed. AgriGuard has three arms: ViralFarm, which scans social media to detect myths in real time; AgriFactCheck, our AI-powered SMS/WhatsApp bot that debunks fake claims in local languages (because not everyone’s hanging out on Instagram); and MythBuster Ag, which hits back with AI-generated videos that “prebunk” misinformation before it spreads. Basically, we’re giving farmers the receipts before the lies go viral.
So now, we’re super hyped to be heading to Africa Biennial Biosciences Communication Symposium (ABBC) 2025 in Lusaka, Zambia. The theme this year, “The War on Science: How Can We Overcome the Burden of Misinformation and Disinformation?”, couldn’t be more relevant to our work. We’re pulling up to the ABBC Symposium not just to take notes, but to make noise (in a good way). We hope to gain valuable insights into science communication by learning from some of the best i.e. experienced communicators, journalists, and researchers who have mastered the art of translating complex science into relatable stories. We would also like to link up with fellow innovators working at the intersection of biosciences, policy, and media. Strengthen AgriGuard by refining how we localize, humanize, and scale our myth-busting efforts. We also hope to champion youth-led innovation, proving that when given the right platforms, young Africans don’t just dream, we deliver. Gen Z isn’t just about online; we’re on the frontlines of Africa’s science revolution.
This is a signal flare to every young scientist who ever felt discouraged, every farmer who ever got misled, and every policymaker who’s still figuring it out. We’re here to say: we see the gaps, we have the tech, and we’re not waiting for permission anymore. AgriGuard is how we’re taking back the narrative, one myth at a time. Let us help our farmers farm facts and not fear!