How will advances in artificial intelligence change agriculture?

In this blog post, we analyze the impact of artificial intelligence on agriculture and the positive changes it can bring. It has the potential to increase the efficiency of agriculture by diagnosing pests, managing weeds, controlling the environment, and solving labor shortages.

 

In March 2016, when AlphaGo won a Go match against Lee Sedol by four games to one, the world’s attention was focused on artificial intelligence. Since then, many experts and futurists have made various predictions about its future impact, including that it will replace jobs in sectors such as agriculture and fishing. However, there is no clear explanation of how artificial intelligence will specifically affect agriculture. In this article, we’ll look at how it will affect agriculture and what positive changes it can bring.
If AI is used in agriculture, it will likely take over many tasks that are difficult for humans to perform. For example, when a crop is infected with a pest, it takes humans a while to determine which pest is causing the disease. But recently, artificial intelligence has been developed that can be trained with deep learning techniques to recognize the appearance of pest-affected crops and instantly determine what disease they are suffering from. This allows us to make accurate judgments about which crops are affected, and allows for faster response and prevention.
One of the key issues in farming is weed management. Farmers spray pesticides or manually remove weeds, but pesticides are harmful to the body and manual removal requires a lot of labor. However, using artificial intelligence robots to manage weeds could dramatically reduce the amount of labor and pesticides needed. In fact, Blue River Technology, an agricultural robotics company, has successfully developed an AI robot that can remove weeds.
Agriculture is heavily influenced by weather conditions and the environment. In some years, too much rainfall can ruin a crop, while in others, not enough rainfall can cause it to fail. These problems can be prevented with the help of artificial intelligence. For example, there are systems that use AI to manage greenhouse cultivation systems. It uses sensors to find the environment where each crop grows best, and then uses AI to maintain that environment. A company in Japan uses AI to manage the sunlight, water, humidity, and temperature to give plants the best possible environment to produce high-quality cabbages. Working with a system like this can help ensure that crop production is consistent while minimizing the impact of the environment.
AI could also replace the scarce labor of farmers. For example, grading crops is a time-consuming task. However, AI is increasingly being used to solve this task. Makoto Koike, a computer systems designer in Japan, used a deep learning platform to develop a system for grading cucumbers, which has allowed him to significantly reduce the workload of his cucumber business while increasing his income.
In summary, the application of AI in agriculture is expected to have a number of positive impacts. AI can take over tasks that are difficult for humans to perform and minimize the environmental impact of agriculture. Of course, the development of these AI technologies is not yet perfect. Pest identification technology is not yet more than 95% accurate, and there are only 26 different types of pests that can be identified. However, as the technology improves and these shortcomings are overcome, the positive effects of AI could be enormous. The introduction of AI into agriculture could revitalize a sector that is currently stagnant.