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Artificial intelligence has much to offer agriculture – including making farming more profitable for those willing to harness new technology. That was the message... AI promises bold future for farming

Artificial intelligence has much to offer agriculture – including making farming more profitable for those willing to harness new technology.

That was the message from Elliot Grant, who delivered the keynote speech to farmers and industry representatives at Agri-TechE’s 2024 REAP Conference, held last month at Newmarket racecourse.

Dr Grant is the former chief executive of Mineral – an Alphabet company formed by Google to apply breakthroughs in artificial intelligence to help make food production agriculture more sustainable.

More reliable

Agriculture is in the early stages of AI, says Dr Grant. Ultimately, it will transform food production. But in the meantime, it will enable farmers to do their job faster – and more effectively while using fewer resources.

This is already being seen in crop production – including through technologies such as spot spraying, using GPS systems; and plant disease monitoring, using hyperspectral imaging.

“The robot can do what the human does, and it can do it equally as well as the human,  but it can do it cheaper and more reliably – so we’ve substituted the human task,” says Dr Grant.

Fewer inputs

At the same time, the potential of AI is developing rapidly. Not only is it enabling farmers to do their jobs faster, it is doing those same jobs better – in some cases reducing herbicide usage by up to 90%.

“It’s identifying weeds about the size of the little nail on my little finger – so less than half an inch – and it’s doing it in less than 100 milliseconds so it can shoot the weed with a shot of herbicide.”

Not all farms can afford such technology – but it is becoming more affordable, says Dr Grant. “The economics of this are very, very compelling and we are pushing down the cost curve to make this readily available.”