Artificial Intelligence is Revolutionizing Farming. Here’s How

Growing up, every summer we’d visit our family in central Illinois, where corn and soybeans stretched out over the vast flatness of the Midwest for miles and miles. Every afternoon we’d wait with excitement as a small yellow plane would fly overhead, passing low over the fields—so low you could see the pilot wave back. As I got older, I learned that that little yellow plane was a crop duster whose job it was to spray herbicides and pesticides over the neighboring fields. And while this made the aerial acrobatics no less cool, the cloud of pesticides that floated down over the crops always had me wondering, certainly, there has to be a better way. 

In all of the talk about artificial intelligence from ChatGPT, to self-driving cars, to autocorrect, we don’t hear much about how AI is reaching one of the most vital industries on our planet: agriculture. A growing human population and increased need to align our large-scale farming practices with environmental concerns is forcing us into a new era of agriculture. An era that will combine generations of farming wisdom with the precision and computing capabilities of our ever-improving computers.

This era won’t depend on crop dusters and clouds of pesticides, but instead a hyper-targeted approach to growing our crops. Yes, laser-shooting super tractors are on the horizon, and they could change the future of food.

Agriculture’s 4th revolution.

Let’s face it, humans have come a long way over our 300,000 year history, and much of that progress has come as a result of our agriculture history: a history that spans four distinct periods. The first agricultural revolution, the Neolithic Revolution, occurred around 12,000 years ago, when humans began to domesticate plants and animals and settle in one place, leading to the rise of farming communities. ¹ The second revolution, the Agricultural Revolution, took place in the 18th and 19th centuries, with the introduction of new farming technologies such as the plow, improved seed varieties, and the development of crop rotation methods. The Green Revolution, the third revolution, happened in the mid-20th century and involved the introduction of high-yielding crop varieties, synthetic fertilizers, and pesticides. ² We now find ourselves in the fourth revolution—the Digital Revolution, Agriculture 4.0—this new horizon in agriculture uses technology such as drones, precision farming, and big data to improve efficiency and sustainability in agriculture.

Imagine if we could use lasers, or very concentrated spot treatments of herbicides to do our weeding. Or if we could grow different kinds of veggies right next to each other, and tend to them all individually by the hundreds of acres. If, instead of pruning back plants, we could target pollinate them to conserve resources and grow more nutritious food. These aren’t what-ifs anymore. Technology is making this all possible and allowing us to imagine a new, more abundant, less ecologically devastating food future.

Our big pesticide problem.

Let’s return to those little yellow crop dusters for just a second to understand the tangible impact of a more technologically driven future.

In the US alone, the agriculture industry uses over 1 billion pounds of pesticides annually ³. Without them, it’s estimated that we would lose 78% of fruit production, 54% of vegetable production, and 32% of cereal production ⁴. Most of these pesticides are administered by spraying the plants by plane, tractor, or via watering systems, all with the hope that saturating the area around the plants will keep back the unwelcome bugs, fungus, or weeds. 

With nearly 38% of the world ⁵ covered in agricultural land—used for one-third of it used cropland and two-thirds for grazing and raising livestock—this means that a significant portion of our planet is consistently being directly exposed to pesticides. In addition, our current pesticide use methods make their way to neighboring sites and non-target plants through absorption, leaching, volatilization, spray drift and runoff ⁶. These chemicals then build up in creeks, rivers, and wetlands and have an impact on wildlife. ⁷

In terms of chemical use alone, it’s clear that our current framing methods could use a big upgrade. So, what if I told you there was a technology being used right now that would decrease the use of pesticides by 95% using the power of Artificial Intelligence?

Robotics leading the revolution! 

One of the companies leading this Agriculture 4.0 Revolution is Verdant Robotics. They specialize in designing and developing farming equipment that uses advanced robotics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning technologies to revolutionize the way crops are grown and harvested. 

Many of their machines would look familiar to the random passer-by, a tractor pulling a sleek looking rig behind it. But, look closer at that rig and you’ll find a remarkably sophisticated piece of ingenuity. Verdant Robotics’ autonomous farming technologies operate without human control, and are equipped with sensors and cameras that allow them to “see” and “understand” the development of crops. This data, combined with advanced algorithms, allows the machines to make decisions about how to weed, fertilize, pollinate, and treat plants for pests and disease—effectively making it so farmers can farm crops on the individual level. This technology is paving the way to a more sustainable and efficient food system, and data from their current studies show that their technologies could reduce the use of pesticides by 95% as compared to conventionally grown produce.

What does this all look like in action? Here’s a great video from Freethink that takes a look at Verdant Robotics’ emerging, and future changing technologies!

For more from Freethink make sure you go check out their YouTube channel where you’ll find their full library of videos that dive into innovations that are tackling some of the world’s biggest problems with remarkably creative solutions.

The future of food!

In November of 2022, Verdant Robotics raised $46.5 million in funding, one of the largest investments in agriculture robotics to date. ⁹ This funding will allow them to deploy new robotic farming equipment while continuing their technology development. As one of their investors from Cleveland Avenue put it:

“Increasingly, consumers are demanding food that meets the trifecta of good for me, for my community and for the planet… Verdant offers next-level precision that growers — and our global food supply — need to meet these demands, not only in the next 20 years but in the next five.”

The importance of this cannot be understated. Estimates from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations state that by 2050, we will need to produce 60% more food to feed the growing world population. They also point out that feeding the world on that scale with our current production methods would take a significant toll on our existing natural resources ¹⁰.

This future of food requires us to find new techniques to create more crop yields that can withstand climate change and don’t further degrade our planet. There is no single “silver bullet” approach that will help us reach this future. Instead, we must combine the traditional knowledge of generations of farmers with technologies like those being created at Verdant Robotics. 

Bringing a revolution to the world!

Changing the way the world farms won’t happen overnight, but it is an important step that we are seeing major investments in the farming technology of tomorrow. If you’d like to take a look at some of the other, remarkably innovative ways that people are finding to feed our world, check out these stories:

Changing the future of food is possible. It will take the wisdom of farmers, engineers, scientits, and local communities, but change is on the horizon. 

Stay beautiful & keep laughing!

• Liesl

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