Meet Lima!
How MOTHERLAND and PeachStone AI, supported by the Cisco Foundation, are building a WhatsApp-based internal learning system to enable our Local Impact Teams to serve more farmer communities in Kenya by 2026.
At the beginning of 2025, MOTHERLAND found itself at a strategic turning point. Our Local Impact Team in Siaya County were performing exceptionally well, delivering regenerative agriculture training, conducting field demonstrations and supporting farmer networks across several villages. Their work was consistent, trusted and deeply rooted in the community. But it was also constrained by time, geography and the physical realities of rural extension work.
MOTHERALND’s ambition to enter new communities was growing, driven by rising demand from farmers and local leaders, yet our team’s capacity could not expand at the same pace. We realised that supporting more farmers did not simply require “more staff”: it required a smarter internal system. A tool that made our local teams faster, more consistent, better coordinated and less dependent on repeated in-person sessions.
It was this gap that led to the birth of Lima, made possible through the collaboration with the Cisco Foundation.
Why Lima Exists: A Tool for MOTHERLAND’s Team, Not the Farmers
Unlike many digital agriculture tools that target farmers directly, Lima was intentionally designed for MOTHERLAND’s Local Impact Team. Her purpose is not to replace trainers or digitise fieldwork; her purpose is to multiply their capacity. Lima supports the team by streamlining internal training processes, organising knowledge, making learning materials accessible on WhatsApp and ensuring that the quality of our training remains consistent across all villages we work in.
This is crucial because the challenges facing our team are not small. Climate shifts shorten planting windows. Soil conditions vary between neighbouring farms. Market dynamics change weekly. And community training sessions often have to be repeated multiple times for different groups. Without support, scaling responsibly would be slow.
Lima therefore acts as MOTHERLAND’s extended internal digital backbone, giving the field team a reliable, always-available learning companion that helps standardise their work, guide new team members and support expansion into new regions without diluting the quality of our approach.
A WhatsApp-Based Digital Companion Built for Low-Connectivity Environments
Lima works entirely within WhatsApp, because WhatsApp is the most widely used communication channel across rural Kenya. This makes the system intuitive and instantly usable for all Local Impact Team members.
PeachStone AI developed an infrastructure specifically adapted to MOTHERLAND’s unique operating reality. The backend is hosted on AWS and supports low-bandwidth environments, allowing Lima to deliver content and internal training materials even in villages with weak networks. A semantic search engine enables team members to retrieve information quickly, whether they are preparing a community session, reviewing soil health concepts or planning a post-harvest demonstration.
Lima also includes a structured onboarding and consent flow, compressed PDF delivery, image optimisation and an internal user-management system that helps MOTHERLAND track how team members interact with the material. The alpha version has already been tested internally, successfully delivering learning materials, answering internal queries and supporting the team during planning and preparation.
Why Lima Has a Personality, Even Though She Is a Team Tool
Even though Lima is used by staff and not by farmers yet, she was intentionally designed to feel like a human companion rather than a technical system. Research from the Stanford HCI Group and the work of Reeves & Nass in The Media Equation consistently show that conversational agents with clear, relatable identities increase engagement, trust and recall, even among professionals.
MOTHERLAND engaged women’s groups, youth leaders and community representatives to explore how people in Siaya communicate on WhatsApp. Their insights shaped Lima’s personality: warm, clear, friendly, approachable and culturally relevant.
One participant summed it up perfectly: “She should sound like someone from here, like talking to a neighbour.”
This philosophy guided the development of her tone, her rhythm and her way of explaining concepts. Even internally, Lima feels like a colleague, one who is always available, always patient and always consistent.
Content Designed to Strengthen the Team
While the technical infrastructure was being developed, MOTHERLAND’s content team created seven comprehensive learning modules focused on key agricultural topics: regenerative soil practices, crop production, composting, erosion control, post-harvest management, market access and safe digital behaviour. These modules were transformed into compact, visually supported PDFs optimised for low connectivity.
For Local Impact Team members, these modules act as a unified reference system. Everyone trains with the same baseline knowledge, receives the same explanations and prepares their farmer-facing sessions with the same materials. This consistency is essential when building trust across multiple villages.
The hybrid model that emerges is powerful. Lima supports the internal learning and preparation work, while the Local Impact Team brings the human connection, contextual knowledge and practical demonstrations that only real field presence can deliver.
Dialogue, Learning Loops and Real-Time Insight
One of Lima’s most important features is that she is not a static library. She is a dialogue partner. Every time a team member asks a question, requests clarification or opens a module, this interaction becomes part of a real-time insight system. Motherland can immediately see which topics require more attention, which areas cause confusion and which modules need refinement.
PeachStone AI highlighted this continuous monitoring loop as a critical aspect of scalability t0 ensures that MOTHERLND grows based on evidence, not assumptions. It also enables the organisation to prepare its team more effectively for the diverse realities in the field.
Built for Expansion into New Communities
Every layer of Lima is engineered to support MOTHERLAND’s expansion strategy. As the organisation enters new communities, the Local Impact Team can rely on Lima to deliver foundational training internally within days, not weeks.
By early 2026, Lima is planned to support both English and Kiswahili, deliver structured internal learning journeys, provide audio-based content and guide new staff members step by step through key concepts. This capability allows MOTHERLAND to grow into new regions without compromising the depth, accuracy or consistency of its work.
The Cisco Foundation’s support therefore enables more than a technology project. It enables MOTHERLAND to build another vital digital component necessary for long-term, community-led scaling.
What Comes Next
The next development phase includes a structured pilot with the Local Impact Team to reach 50 more farmers towards the end of 2025. Their interactions will guide improvements in Lima’s behaviour, content flow and training pathways. By 2026, Lima is expected to evolve into one of the first WhatsApp-based internal agriculture companions in East Africa, designed to strengthen a field team rather than to bypass it.
This approach reflects MOTHERLAND’s philosophy: meaningful agricultural transformation requires trusted relationships, community presence and human leadership. Technology should support the people doing the work, not replace them.
Lima embodies this vision. She is a tool built with and for MOTHERLAND’s team, enabled by the Cisco Foundation and engineered by PeachStone AI. Together, we are shaping a future where community-led agriculture becomes more resilient, more efficient and more scalable without ever losing its human core.
About Cisco Foundation
Cisco Foundation envisions a world of equitable, resilient and empowered communities where everyone can reach their full potential and thrive. Its mission is to partner with organizations to create and scale innovative digital solutions that promote a healthy planet and advance the wellbeing and self-reliance of underserved communities globally. Since 1997, it has harnessed the breadth of offerings from Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO), the worldwide technology leader helping revolutionize the way organizations connect and protect in the AI era, for strategic guidance, catalytic funding, technology donations and support. Discover more about Cisco Foundation on its website and follow us on X at @Cisco.
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