Cyndi's Two Cents

Artificial Intelligence: The Next Tool in the Farm Toolbox

We’ve come a long way baby. . .

The 2026 Farm Progress Show near Boone, Iowa, sure struck a chord when it comes to just how much agriculture has changed.

Everywhere I looked, there was technology: artificial intelligence, automation, robotics, drones, precision agriculture, and machines capable of seeing, analyzing and responding to what is happening in the field.

I grew up on a farm where new technology meant a bigger tractor, a better combine or a piece of equipment that could make a hard job a little easier.

We didn’t have a computer telling us what was happening in the field.

We had Dad.

He had a pretty good idea what was happening because he had spent a lifetime paying attention, just as his dad had, and the generations before him.

Today, the equipment is paying attention, too. Artificial intelligence helps identify weeds. Precision systems are making decisions about where inputs are needed. Drones are becoming another set of eyes over the field. Autonomous equipment is moving from an interesting concept toward something farmers are actually using.

For years, farmers have been collecting information: yield data, soil information, weather, field conditions, equipment performance, planting information and application records.

Now technology is getting better at helping us put that information to work.

John Deere is testing an artificial intelligence assistant called “JD” that can use farm and machine information to help answer questions and assist with equipment and field decisions.

Researchers are using AI to comb through mountains of genetic and field data, looking for combinations that can produce a stronger, more resilient plant that can better handle drought, disease, heat or changing growing conditions. AI is also helping researchers identify new chemistries and determine how they can target weeds, insects and diseases more precisely.

But technology doesn’t farm the land. Farmers do. The best technology simply gives farmers better information and more options. That’s always been the appeal of innovation in agriculture.

We don’t adopt something because it is shiny or because someone put the word “smart” on the label. Farmers want to know whether it works.

Does it save time? Reduce inputs? Improve efficiency? Make a machine more productive? Help a farmer cover more acres without working more hours? Make the job safer? And most importantly, does it make economic sense?

Most farmers are not ready to turn the farm over to a computer. Technology brings plenty of questions about data ownership, cybersecurity, reliability, infrastructure and cost. Farmers will have to decide where technology genuinely adds value and where it simply adds another bill.

Standing among all that innovation at Farm Progress Show, I found myself wondering what those generations before us would think of it all.

They couldn’t have imagined much of what I saw.

I do not believe that artificial intelligence can replace the farmer. But it can give the farmer another set of eyes, another set of calculations and, sometimes, another way to look at a problem.