Yara Digital Farming, Asia & Africa - Designing for Smallholder Impact at Scale

At Yara Digital Labs, I led the design of key digital tools that support farmers and retailers across Asia and Africa. As the lead designer for the Yara FarmCare and YaraConnect platforms, my focus was on improving access to agronomic knowledge and streamlining the distribution of farming inputs in regions across Africa and Southeast Asia.

This work involved designing intuitive service experiences—from shaping revenue strategies to developing user-centered product roadmaps—while ensuring alignment between business objectives and local user needs. The platforms were launched in 14 languages, which enhanced my understanding of designing UI components for diverse scripts and languages such as Tamil, Bahasa, and more.

In the African context, I also gained valuable insight into the challenges of low-connectivity environments. This led to the exploration of USSD-based touchpoints as a way to extend accessibility in areas with limited internet access.

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My Role

• Owned end-to-end design of a farmer-facing app and a retailer network management tool across multiple geographies.

• Delivered service design artifacts (journey maps, wireframes, prototypes) and led design sprints across cross-functional teams.

• Championed design thinking internally by facilitating workshops that shaped new product strategies.
   

What I learned

• How to adapt product thinking for emerging markets with low digital maturity.

• The power of service design in systems with multiple user types and complex offline dependencies.

• How to balance scale with local context through inclusive research and co-creation practices.

This experience deepened my appreciation for impact-driven design and taught me how to align business innovation with grassroots value.