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AI technology unlocking efficiency on the farm

Some ag industry professionals say AI is helping to improve efficiency on the farm.

International Society of Precision Agriculture President John Fulton says labor is still the number one concern in ag production.

“How do we get work done when we don’t have the people to get it done, so there’s where you see a lot of the automation and robotics coming in now,” he says.

Ohio State University professor Scott Shearer tells Brownfield automation will allow farmers to have around the clock productivity.

“One of the things we kind of suffer from right now is when you require skilled operators, how many hours can they work a day,” he says. “The nice thing about some of this autonomy is, it’s going to go 24/7 and it’s going to go 24/7 during the peak periods.”

As AI evolves, Shearer says the need for larger high horsepower tractors, will likely go away.

“The number that is staggering to me is 31% of the time that tractor engine is idling, so we have a half million to three quarter million dollar asset for about 185 hours of use a year,” he says. “We begin thinking about how we can get better utilization of the equipment as well.”

Fulton says AI could contribute more than $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030.