According to Bayer, farmers have always collected and evaluated a large amount of data with each growing season: seeds planted, inputs applied, crops harvested, etc. Artificial intelligence (AI) tools analyze this data at high speeds and funnel it back to farmers in the form of useful insights, helping them make critical, timely, in-field decisions.
AI should make our farmers more efficient and increase crop production -a good thing for everyone. The USDA says family farmers makeup 98 percent of all U.S. farms and those family farms account for 85 percent of U.S. agricultural production. I confess that fact surprised me as I have seen several articles that sound a common alarm like this one- Who is farming America's land? It's family farmers for the most part.
It turns out the above referenced link relates to the farming and raising of animals and the USDA cited values apply to crops. We have seen the result of the agribusiness raising animals while we are experiencing the effects of the global Covid-19 pandemic. Pork production by a single Smithfield location reduced our pork production by 5% when the plant was shut down because of the number of Covid-19 cases there.
Smithfield -based in Smithfield, Virginia, is a leader in numerous packaged meats categories. Popular brands include Smithfield®, Eckrich®, Nathan's Famous®, Farmland®, Armour®, Farmer John®, Kretschmar®, John Morrell®, Cook's®, Gwaltney®, Carando®, Margherita®, Curly's®, Healthy Ones®, Morliny®, Krakus®, and Berlinki®. Smithfield Foods is a U.S. company that provides more than 40,000 American jobs and partners with thousands of American farmers. The company was founded in Smithfield, Virginia, in 1936 and was acquired by Hong Kong-based WH Group in 2013. Yep - Smithfield is a Chinese owned company.
Smart farming also applies “pig face recognition” to monitor a pig’s growth as well as automatically adjust the temperature and humidity in the pigsty. JD.com also said a robotic feeding device and flexible fence can lead to precise control of pig feed, according to Economic Information Daily.
Digital farming enables individual solutions tailored to each farm’s needs: the right product in the right place, at the right time, in the right amount. With razor thin margins, farmers welcome all the help they can get.
There was a time in the sixties and seventies when thanks to the Green Revolution, feeding the worlds hungry was essentially a distribution problem. We could produce sufficient food to feed the world.
Over time, climate change, civil unrest and population growth have us in the unenviable position of needing to boost production significantly, lower production cost significantly and distribute the food we can produce to those who need it. Digital data is the most efficient way to solve that issue and AI is a large part of that solution. While a percentage of people in the west refuse to partake of genetically modified food, they can afford to. I seriously doubt a starving family in a third world country will be quite as picky about the wheat they use to make their bread or the fact that the meat they eat comes from a genetically modified animal that gets to market faster. Artificial Intelligence will be a large part of the equipment digesting the applicable data and making the decisions that once again enable us to feed the worlds hungry, assuming of course we can control the civil unrest and limit the corruption that lines the pockets of some dictator.
AI can also evaluate vast quantities of data to allow farmers to make decisions on seeds, fertilizers and such on the spot as necessary. It would appear the only way for a farmer to survive in this market is to embrace digital technology and AI. A rapidly warming climate and changing weather patterns will continue to bedevil farmers and it is an adapt to survive scenario facing the world's population. Perhaps more than any other industry, agriculture will require a global response and IMO AI will be at the front of that battle. It remains to be seen whether or not people can navigate the political waters and get the job done.
That's my admittedly quick take on AI in agriculture. Be sure to check out my six on one compatriots takes on the subject. Their blogs can be found at these locations - Sanjana, Padmum, Raju, Conrad, & Ramana.
I'll see you next week, same shack time and same shack channel.
That's a marvelous and knowledgeable take and for once, we diverged considerably, because I relied on my own experiences and translated those. You may have shown me that the family farm has better staying power than I assumed!
ReplyDeleteWow, Shackman, a lot of research for a geek to undertake to write this post. My take is that we in India, have a long way to catch up as you would have seen from my post.
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