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Unpredictable Rains. Confident Decisions.
Margaret Ruguru has farmed one and a quarter acres in Njoro, Nakuru County, for as long as she can remember. She used to plant after Good Friday — knowledge passed down and tested across generations. But the seasons have shifted.
This year the rains came in early March. Without an advisory, she would have assumed it was a false start and waited. Instead, she planted on time — with confidence.
Because a digital climate advisory message powered by TomorrowNow’s expert agro-met intelligence told her: now is the moment.
Suitable Planting Window: 2026 Case Study
"Climate change doesn't frighten me. It just requires you to plan yourself according to how the weather is changing."
Margaret Ruguru, 47
For smallholder farmers, knowing when to plant is one of the most consequential choices of the year.
The seasons are shifting in ways farmers can feel but not predict. David Kariuki, who works with farmers through Regen Organics, remembers planting far later in the year; this season the advisory arrived in early March. The calendars their parents farmed by are becoming less reliable every year.
And the stakes are high. Research drawing on planting and yield data from tens of thousands of Kenyan farmers shows that planting just two weeks off the optimal date can cost 10–20% of a harvest — for a family farming an acre or two, the difference between school fees paid and unpaid.
"Before, it was just guessing like everyone else."
John Njugi Karuki
"Other weather updates usually just say there will be a certain amount of millimeters of rain, but they don't tell you it's time to plant. But this one tells us exactly when to plant. So when a farmer plants, they know they aren't missing the window and are right on time. It gives them confidence."
The frontier AI weather model inside Suitable Planting Window.
Our Suitable Planting Window (SPW) onset forecasts are built on GenCast — Google DeepMind’s frontier AI weather model.
Where conventional forecasts give a single number, GenCast generates an ensemble of 50 possible futures for each location, capturing the uncertainty that matters most to a farmer making a planting decision. It’s one of three weather inputs we blend through the GAP consensus engine.
Delivered with one of our trusted partners, the farmer-facing organization Regen Organics, SPW is live this season for farmers across 15 Kenyan counties and six agro-ecological regions of Kenya.
50x probabilistic weather scenarios
140 ground weather stations validating the signal
You can plant now, the rain is coming.
Monday's message. Tuesday's planting.
March, April, May 2026 — Veronica Mukami farms four and a half acres in Njoro, Kenya — maize, potatoes, peas, beans. She has been receiving the advisories for two seasons. When the March, April, May 2026 rains arrived early — earlier than farmers had seen in years — Veronica received a message on Monday.
“The message I received on Monday said: ‘You can plant now, the rain is going on.’ So I decided to plant because most of the messages are accurate. The information they give us is accurate.”
She planted her maize on Tuesday. Without the advisory, she says, she would have done what most farmers would do when rains arrive unexpectedly early — assumed it was a false start and waited. That wait, on a variable season, could have cost her a sizeable share of her harvest.
Veronica is one of many Regen Organics farmers — spread across 15 Kenyan counties and six agro-ecological regions of Kenya, from the Rift Valley highlands to the Eastern semi-arid lowlands — who planted this season based on a Suitable Planting Window recommendation.
For all of them, this season’s early arrival was exactly the test the advisory was built for.
"With the information, now that the rain came early, it was very useful — because if I were to do it on my own, I would think, "this rain will just come for a little time, then it goes away." But they said the rain would continue. So the information was very useful."
How It Works
From a frontier AI weather model to a message on a farmer’s phone.
The advisory reaches farmers through three connected layers — frontier weather science, a clear decision-ready signal, and the trusted partners who deliver it. The technology is powerful, but it is only the beginning of what makes this work.
Google's GenCast model generates 50 possible weather futures for each location. Combined with satellite data and a network of 140 ground stations across the region, it produces the most accurate picture of what is coming — validated continuously against what actually happens.
Google GenCast · Ground stations
2. Systems Leadership
The forecast data is run through calibrated thresholds — specific to each location, each crop, each growth stage — to produce a single, actionable signal. Not "1.6mm of rain expected." Plant now. Or wait. Village-level · Crop-specific
3. Partnership & Responsiveness
The advisory reaches farmers through organizations they already have a relationship with — like Regen Organics. It arrives by SMS or voice call, in Kiswahili, to any phone. The intelligence comes from TomorrowNow, and the trusted relationship from our farmer-facing delivery partners — so the farmer gets a decision they can act on with confidence. SMS · Voice · Lead farmers
Working together to deliver results:
The Broader Picture
One advisory. One national program. One platform designed to last.
Suitable Planting Window is one part of something larger. Today it’s live in Kenya, inside the national climate advisory program — and it’s built to expand to every country we work in. Behind it sits GAP, the Global Access Platform: the open API that partners and institutions plug into to access our weather intelligence and run it in their own name.
This season
A platform built to be owned — not depended on
The upgraded Suitable Planting Window is live this season for Regen Organics farmers across 15 Kenyan counties and six agro-ecological regions of Kenya. March, April, May 2026 has been one of the most variable seasons on record — and that variability is exactly what the advisory was designed to handle.
GAP: Global Access Platform
A platform built to be owned — not depended on
GAP — the Global Access Platform — is TomorrowNow’s open API. Any organization can plug into it to draw on the same weather intelligence that powers Suitable Planting Window and build it into their own tools and channels. Alongside planting, it carries decision-ready advisories for fertilizer timing, spraying, harvest timing, and pest and disease — and it’s designed to be hosted and run by the institutions that use it: governments, national agencies, and farmer organizations. Making GAP more agentic over time — so it can carry more of this work autonomously — is an ambition we’re actively building toward.
DCAS
The national climate advisory program across four countries
The Digital Climate Advisory Services — in partnership with Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) and national institutions in Malawi, Zambia and Nigeria. The largest agro-met advisory program of its kind in sub-Saharan Africa. Suitable Planting Window is being rolled out inside it.
Partner with us
TomorrowNow can do for your organization what it has done for Regen Organics this season. We build and validate the weather science, and package it into a clear, actionable signal. You deliver it through the relationships farmers already trust. The advisory arrives in your name. The confidence it gives belongs to the farmer.
- Full technical platform and onboarding provided by TomorrowNow
- Advisories localized to your farmers’ specific locations and crops
- Delivered through your existing channels — SMS, voice call, lead farmers
- Co-branded — the intelligence arrives in your name, through your relationship
- Alongside planting: fertilizer timing, spraying, harvest timing, pest and disease advisories available
- Continuously validated and improving throughout the season
