Artificial Intelligence Opens New Farming Possibilities

Artificial Intelligence Opens New Farming Possibilities

Tim Hammerich
Tim Hammerich
News Reporter
It’s time for your Farm of the Future Report. I’m Tim Hammerich.

Often when we hear that artificial intelligence is going to change agriculture, the explanation of how that’s going to look is a bit fuzzy. We are starting to see examples though in the way of automation. Precision AI is a Canadian startup that’s developing drone spraying technology that is currently being trialed on farms. CEO Daniel McCann says it’s an example of how artificial intelligence can open up new ways of farming.

McCann… “The previous paradigm that's basically time immemorial is again, because human beings don't have the ability to make per plan level decisions on a giant field, you're going to spray everything, right. But with automation and AI well now everybody like, it's not just us, there's other people building robots, capable of making per plant level decisions. And when you can make a per plant level decision, it's a complete game changer, right? Because now as you say, we don't need to worry about whether or not this particular chemical's impact on the crop is going to be problematic because you won't have to spray the crop. Right? So even things that aren't currently possible, like using some organics like agricultural vinegar to control weeds, well you can't use that on a crop today, but if you could precisely spray it and target just the plants, now that becomes actually a viable method of weed control and resistance control. So there's all sorts of new types of completely outside the box approaches to this problem that I think are going to become the defacto standard as this technology becomes more and more prominent. And it's inevitable, it's coming, the efficiency improvements are just too great.”

Tune in tomorrow to hear more about how artificial intelligence is finding real applications on the farm.

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