AI is making its contribution to improving crop yields and animal welfare, as well as anticipating disease and controlling pests. Optimisation on this scale should facilitate a more sustainable model for managing the resources of our planet.
The GPAI Innovation and Commercialization Working Group has focused its efforts on SMEs, which can often be at a disadvantage as a result of implementing AI solutions. This is particularly true when it comes to farming, which needs AI responses to its own industry-based. In the agricultural industry, the development of AI cannot be limited purely to the interests of its professionals (farmers, agricultural cooperatives, etc.), but must address the need to curb the rural exodus and meet the expectations of society in terms of food chain safety, animal welfare, crop optimisation and water reserves.
Precision, anticipation and traceability
Agriculture is about more than simply feeding people. It must also coexist with the resources of our planet to ensure a sustainable level of economic prosperity. Therefore, the Working Group therefore intends to present solutions focusing on:
- Precision in feeding programmes, harvesting and production, water usage for crops and livestock, pest control, and animal growth monitoring, health and welfare.
- Anticipation of livestock disease, especially in dairy cows, herbicide overdose prevention, and trends in crop prices relative to yields.
- Optimisation of milk production, harvest scheduling and increased use of biodegradable pesticides.
- Screening for chronic disease and behavioural disorders in livestock, poor crop maintenance, pest control using drones and satellite imagery, and leak detection in irrigation systems.
- Traceability and tracking of crops and livestock production through the food chain
An AI portal for farmers
The project will be conducted in the following three phases :
- Awareness aims to publicise initiatives to recruit AI-aware actors working in the agricultural industry and encourage them to collaborate around the project.
- Accessibility is intended to identify AI solutions.
- Resources is to build a web portal for agricultural SMEs. This portal will give them access to a library classified by topic (good practices, how to digitalise your farm, etc.). It will also enable the download of algorithms already used in programs and let them to view a directory of companies specialising in the application of AI to agriculture.
This collaborative platform can incorporate expertise from other GPAI Working Groups that have also been working on issues relevant to agriculture. These include, for example, Data Governance (the sharing of data on livestock parasite and disease control, animal welfare, etc.), Responsible AI (improving yields without harming the environment, biological ecosystems, animal welfare and human health) and the Future of Work (attracting young people as a result of digitalising the sector, thereby slowing the rural exodus).