Artificial intelligence adoption by American farmers is growing. The technology is advanced and vital. Midwest farmers point their smartphones at a soybean plant in a lush field. He or she could take a photo of a pest crawling on a leaf and allow an AI-driven computer to name the bug’s genus and indicate its threat level. It may seem odd, but this technology is essential.
A labour shortage in agriculture threatens crop yield and profitability. The world’s food systems lack adequate workers. This is especially problematic in the United States, which ranks third in agricultural output behind China and India.
One of the main challenges is ageing farmers. Farming requires day-to-day manual labour that many can’t do. Some of these businesses have been family-run for decades, but subsequent generations aren’t taking over. Instead, they’re working in less laborious, higher-paying industries. Like the rest of the agricultural workforce, mostly immigrants, hired labourers follow these trends.
“Labour is the number one worry,” said American Farm Bureau Federation director of government affairs Emily Buckman, while adding, “The typical farmer is 60.”
Auto-steering guidance systems for row crops like maise have used artificial intelligence for 20 years. However, the adoption of the technology has been rapid in recent years, with 87% of American agricultural enterprises utilising AI by late 2021. Financial incentives from the federal government are also accelerating AI development and deployment in agriculture.
Artificial intelligence adoption on over two million American farms might have global repercussions. As the global population grows and climate change threatens the agriculture ecosystems of some of the world’s largest producers, including the US, which exported more than USD 100 billion of products to China, Mexico, Canada, and Europe in 2023.
Buckman said the business wants to mass-produce affordable and accessible technologies “so farmers can feed the globe. By 2050, the world population will grow by two billion, requiring 70% greater food production. Innovative technology will aid us.”
A Promising Future
Agriculture has pressure to develop solutions quickly. US labour shortages have prompted these operations to perform more with less. The climate problem’ urgency is the tipping point. The unpredictable weather is affecting crop output and making growth conditions harder to anticipate. Thus, hotter weather may reduce food supplies sooner than expected.
Patrick Schnable, renowned professor and Plant Sciences Institute director at Iowa State University, says, “All estimates show considerable losses in crop production owing to climate change. A 10% or 20% corn output drop would be devastating. Can we use AI to boost resiliency?”
The National Science Foundation (NSF) and USDA finance Iowa State’s AI Institute for Resilient Agriculture develop AI-driven tools and technologies with American partners.
“Our focus is looking at two main problems,” adds Schnable, while continuing, “One is sustainability identification, how to create new agriculture-related activities that are climate-resilient. The second item is how artificial intelligence, robots, and sensing tools can help farmers make more money with less energy, chemicals, and water.”
Baskar Ganapathysubramanian, head of the AI Institute for Resilient Agriculture and Iowa State University mechanical engineering professor, says “There’s a great deal of promise, and some of it’s already being deployed” for those two aims.
Buckman says drones and GPS technologies are the most popular artificial intelligence tools. Self-driving tractors and combines, with quality sensors, can help farmers determine which sections of their crops require more or less attention. Robots can also sort without human eyes. Some farms use AI to sort potatoes for faults. Other farmers use AI-enhanced cultivators to plant seeds and eliminate weeds, replacing dozens of hours of labour.
Improving Yields
The strategy of “precision agriculture” involves using artificial intelligence to reduce resource use and boost crop production. Farmers may precisely target problem regions with upcoming technologies like drones that measure water or pesticide levels.
“Precision agriculture reduces water waste, increases efficiency, and does more with less,” adds Buckman, as she believes “US agriculture needed 100 million extra acres 30 years ago to match today’s productivity levels.”
Precision agriculture approaches combined with AI and other technologies have increased production.
Global agricultural giants have pioneered and scaled many of these innovations. In Illinois, John Deere designs and manufactures tractors and other tech tools for global agriculture.
“Our goal with AI and technology is to help farmers do their jobs better,” says Sarah Schinckel, John Deere’s Intelligent Solutions Group director of new technologies. AI technologies are “changing farming; it’s already here, and farmers are accepting it. We expect more farms to use this technology,” she commented.
Schinckel said John Deere has offered farmers AI tools like Autotrac for decades, allowing hands-free combined steering. They advance when technology improves.
The company created See & Spray Tech in 2018 to “bring AI to the machines” and help farmers locate and eradicate weeds in crops and administer pesticides at a very fine level. Schinckel believes that technology has helped farmers save 66% on herbicides.
“A lot of this stuff has an obvious ROI,” she added.
John Deere introduced fully autonomous tractors in recent years. Schinckel believes those tractors are the next important step toward farm autonomy, which should accelerate in the next few years.
“We want autonomy in all production phases by 2030,” she said.
AI Harvesting
Lowering costs and increasing yields are important to American farms and agricultural firms, but the advantages might be global.
“Improved field productivity means more profit for farmers, a stronger supply chain, and lower prices for consumers,” said Steven Thomson, national programme leader of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, Institute of Food Production and Sustainability, USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
“More sustainable methods entail less deterioration of natural resources and reduction of ecological damage to our world,” he added.
AI can improve agriculture and animal management to eliminate unhealthy animals and plants, boost earnings, and safeguard the environment.
Artificial intelligence has potential in farming, and the United States government has funded agricultural AI research centres.
Thomson said these programmes aim to provide “easy-to-use, AI-aided decision support tools to enable land stewards discover win-win alternatives across environment, economics and society”.
Precision resource distribution, soil surveillance, pathogen contact tracking to improve food safety, and harvesting robotics are among the most advanced new instruments. Investments also drive simpler innovations.
Ganapathysubramanian says Iowa State researchers used AI to create a pest-identifying smartphone app that saves hours of manual labour. The instruments in development may help farmers save costs, which is vital for financially sustainable agriculture, given its tight margins.
Schnable noted that “AI gives a very natural and beneficial instrument for farmers to make more meaningful, localised decisions, hedge their bets, and evaluate risks better.”
If adopted at scale and worldwide, those tools might exponentially enhance crop yields in Southeast Asia, which needs them most.
“The marginal cost to deliver [an AI tool] in India is next to USD zero. Once constructed, tools are cheap to deliver,” he said.
Experts are cautiously optimistic that these instruments, in the hands of large-scale farmers, can help the agriculture industry in confronting climate change, the uncertain labour market, and more. Potential and need have never been greater.