Texas A&M University is hosting hundreds of researchers in the field of artificial intelligence this week. They’re sharing the latest developments on how the technology can be used to improve agriculture.
"It's actually sort of difficult to get that expertise from engineering and computer science and bring that to agriculture. It's not as sexy as working on a smart phone or working on an autonomous vehicle. So a lot of the people developing this are having to develop it within agriculture,” said Dr. Seth Murray, Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Department of Soil and Crop Sciences. He’s one of the co-organizers of the 2024 Artificial Intelligence in Agriculture and Natural Resources Conference.
Artificial intelligence could be used to analyze photos taken by drones to identify pests or weeds, analyze soil samples, or coordinate reports on crop or livestock prices in different markets.
“I'm a corn breeder. I breed new varieties that companies pick up,” said Dr. Murray. “Those companies produce seed that farmers will grow. So, most of what AI is doing so far is not necessarily touching farmers - but it's the research that we're doing that will be touching farmers in the future."
He predicts the use of AI will be adopted by farmers and ranchers – once companies are able to produce systems that are easy to use.
"AI is going to be most effective as a tool to be behind the scenes,” he said. “Agriculture should be one of the key case studies for AI because we have so much diverse data that's really hard to put together and make sense of. You've got people who are reporting yield in their fields, you've got yield monitors on some people's combines, we've got economic data of the price crops sell for in different places throughout the country. AI is actually probably the best type of tool to integrate all of that disparate information. That's sort of what everybody is at the beginning of."
The 2024 Artificial Intelligence in Agriculture and Natural Resources Conference runs April 15-17 at the Texas A&M Hotel and Conference Center in College Station.
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