Old McDonald may not be using AI, but maybe you should

Mention agriculture and certain images spring to mind: pigs and cows in their stalls, chickens in their coops, swaying fields of corn, a tractor making its way across a field… You can almost feel the soft breeze, the fresh country air, the lazy heat of the sun. You probably don’t think about artificial intelligence (AI).

Yet maybe you should. There’s a revolution going on and it’s coming to a field near you!

Old McDonald’s farm will never be the same

While self-driving cars are stirring controversy, self-driving tractors and combine harvesters are busy plying fields. Robot swarms are inspecting crops. Autonomous sprayers are using detection camera technology to precision spray pesticides and reduce chemical exposure. With AI, it has never been easier to monitor and tend to crops.

Agribusinesses are also turning to AI to assess soil health, keep tabs on weather conditions, and determine where to irrigate crops or apply fertilizer. They’re combining techniques like 3D mapping and data from sensors and drones to predict soil yields. And smart greenhouses are using AI to automatically adjust humidity, light, and temperature levels for optimal plant growth.

Big change requires big investments

All of this, of course, costs money, yet farms and agribusinesses often struggle financially. Many lack the required economies of scale. AI also represents a big investment in training and tools. And then there’s the whole notion of the family farm and its artisanal traditions versus how that squares with today’s larger-scale operations.

AI’s potential benefits in agriculture are clear, but are not yet available to all.

Agribusiness also benefits indirectly from AI

Agribusinesses do not operate in a vacuum but as part of a broader business environment. As such, they benefit from advances in related fields that boost productivity and performance. In today’s borderless world of Peruvian blueberries and South African peaches at your local grocery store, one such field is translation.

The power of “AI + humans”

Before the advent of AI, people tried for years to get machines to translate, with varying degrees of success. Now with large language models and vast computing power, that goal has come into focus.