Self-Propelled sprayer with sidelit spray nozzles spraying winter wheat with the Wrekin and trees in background in Shropshire

Farming With AI

Generative AI Applied to Agriculture

AI is the future of farming. Using Generative AI will be as normal a farming activity as combining, milking cows and watching the weather.

The kind of AI that will become essential to farmers of all kinds is Generative AI, also called GenAI, no satellites, farm machinery, sensors or drones are needed, although their emanating data may made more user-friendly or effortlessly and usefully combined with other farm data. This is because Generative AI does its almost illimitable work on either your computer or your phone.

These superpowers were described well in a speech by the CEO of Microsoft:

"Democratisation of knowledge"
Satya Nadella, CEO Microsoft

This means that Generative AI is giving farmers access to the whole world’s knowledge and expertise and instantly can be almost incredibly selectively pulling from this valuable information to help with all kinds of farm decision-making.

Comprehensive Ubiquity

Capturing the power and abundance of Generative AI in a single word is tricky but we could think of of it as an almost infinitely deep goldmine of farming knowledge riches.

For farming it provide advice suited to every country around the world; it works on both the micro and macro scales of farm decision-making; and it works on its own data or a farm's own data or the two in combination. Timewise it can access the ancient past, the recent past and today's announcements. Even GenAI can't see into the future but it can do some very impressive ideas testing, business projections and farm-scale modelling.

Evolving Like Lightning

AI is commonly referred to as if it is a single thing. This greatly understates Generative AI in three ways:

  • There are many different platforms, with varying virtues and in hot competition.
    (Saying 'an AI' is usually more correct than simply 'AI'.)
  • Each of the platforms then offers different model capability levels.
  • Model evolution is so rapid that the amazing and best of today will easily have become obsolete within 12 months! No other technology has ever evolved at this rate.

    • For farmers these bring nothing but good things. It's close to zero cost. More can be done, it can be done better and it can be done more easily with even less expertise.

    Farmer Empowering

    Market researchers have long been asking farmers about how they are influenced: is it what neighbours do; what their vet/agronomist advises; what they see in the farming press/online; and so on.

    The reason for the question being, of course, the desire of farmer suppliers to be influencing sales. In the new world of Generative AI farmers are free to consult, with a little GenAI know-how, upon their own source of unbiased, unfiltered and totally independent counsel. And this is exactly what democratisation of knowledge means in practice.