From robots to milk cows to lasers to remove weeds, farmers are using artificial intelligence

ByTech Word News

Of all the industries that seem poised for AI disruption, agriculture might not seem like the most obvious. For all the advances in technology and mechanization over the centuries, agriculture is essentially about growing crops and raising livestock – and an ear of corn cannot be digitized.

But right now, the industry is in the midst of what some are calling the fourth agricultural revolution, as driverless tractors zoom across fields, drones map soil moisture and cows are outfitted with Fitbit-like devices that track their eating habits. Yu Jiang, an assistant professor at Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, predicts that within a few years, most large U.S. farms will incorporate AI into their operations. The result, he says, will be a transformational shift not just in how farms are run, but in “how we think about agriculture as a job.”

For farmers already involved in AI, the shift is underway—and it can be complicated. Deciding whether to buy a giant machine that uses lasers to weed or install a robotic cattle milking system requires a leap of faith: The equipment is expensive and it takes time to learn how to use it. It also requires accepting that everyday life will look and feel different.

But the farmers I spoke with hope that adopting new technologies will help them face the big challenges in the industry. In recent years in particular, they have found that it is more difficult to find enough workers and that fewer children are sticking around in family businesses to take over the business. It’s still hard to say exactly how the age of AI will transform agriculture. But for now, these farmers are coming up with new ways to use technology to transform their daily work.

My grandfather and grandmother bought this farm in the early 1930s. I farmed with my dad for almost 20 years before I bought him in 2005. Most of my children have worked here at some point. But now it’s mainly me and my wife Karen and our 120 dairy cows.

In 2019, our barn burned down in an electrical installation fire. Fortunately, we didn’t lose any cows, but we did lose most of our equipment. We have heard of a company that makes automatic milkers, feeders and cleaners. The most interesting part was how much time we save milking. Before the fire, two people milked the cows: four o’clock in the morning and four o’clock in the evening. We got up around 2:30 and started milking at 3.

Did it feel risky to put all our resources into a system I haven’t tried? At 60? Yes, it happened! I will tell you that we never thought about how artificial intelligence worked before this. But these crazy milkmaids groom each cow. They are adjusted according to her milk flow, her milk production, teat placement. It’s all happening and I think it’s AI

At first, some cows were not happy with the robotic milking arm. They saw this set of brush swirling and said, “Hey, what’s this? It took maybe a week before we started seeing most of the herd doing their own thing. That was a long, long week! We had to pick them up and push them through. Now they’re going without a problem.”

Now I get up around 5:30 and go downstairs to check on things. We also have an AI feeder – I call him Gordon. He has a personality, so I looked at him. So Gordon runs out here to the barn and says, “Oh, we need feeding, yes.” So then he’ll go to the silo, load up and go feed the cows.

What do I do with all my free time now? Cows still need tending – yesterday I was trimming their legs and cutting crops for feed. Most of my kids have moved out or gotten full time jobs so it’s really just me doing the cows. I miss having them around. But on the other hand, being a family farm, we couldn’t really do things that interrupted milking time. Now my son can go to his kids’ baseball games.

Weed control is every farmer’s enemy. There are millions of weed seeds on every plant that grows and we’re always trying to kill the damn guys. Herbicides – I call them chemotherapy for the poor little bulbs because they have to grow through it, and it affects them. The less stress we can expose the plant to, the better the onion we will get. Whenever I’m out in the field, I always peel the onions and eat them raw. I’m looking for a strong flavor and sweetness.

My brother and I started growing tomatoes and peppers for a salsa company in 1979. Then they asked us for onions. We now grow about 1,800 truckloads of onions a year and employ more than 300 people. Fifty percent of our business is food service and restaurants. We also sell wholesale onions for salsas, tomato sauces, spaghetti sauces and the like.

We used to use a tractor with a herbicide sprayer. We would spray the entire bed with herbicides. We would also knit by hand. But a few years ago one of our main herbicides went off the market and we couldn’t use it anymore.

Coincidentally, we heard about this new laser technology around the same time. He shoots lasers at the weeds and kills them, leaving the onion alone. The machine was a significant investment – it’s something like $1.2 million per machine plus a tractor that can run you $300,000. But work is expensive and hard to come by. And herbicides are expensive and disappearing because they are overregulated. It probably has some good points and some bad points. We just have to accept it.

Once we bought the machine, learning how to use it was a big change. People had to get used to it. It definitely didn’t go as fast as we wanted in the beginning, but it’s getting better. We’re still learning how to use the damn thing because it’s so technologically advanced. We had to learn to control the speed. It’s a wonderful machine in its own way. We still have to hand weed the fields, but not as much as we used to.

I don’t think AI will take the job. We’re going to start using autonomous tractors in the fall, so we might lose a tractor driver or two, but all the guys I have that manage the ranches—I need those guys because they have eyes and can look at everything and see what’s going on.

I am a second generation farmer. I’ve been around turf all my life. My dad started his farm in Cartersville, Georgia in 1985. Eleven years ago we were acquired by a larger company and now we have farms in six states.

Turf is not just grass. We also harvest roots and soil. People then buy the grass and transplant it into their backyards. Like a farmer who grows crops, we must prepare the field and sow it. Then we mow everything, our entire acreage, at least twice a week during the growing season. Think about how long it takes to mow the lawn. Now imagine doing that to thousands of lawns several times a week. We had people cutting 12 hours a day.

I think farmers are stigmatized as people who don’t pay attention to technology. But we pay close attention to advances in technology because it can really make our operations more efficient. Farmers have always been about maximizing productivity. We started thinking, what parts of this can we automate? We learned about this company called Sabanto that sells a device that can turn a regular tractor into an autonomous one. We bought the first unit in 2023.

We now have about 30 tractors in our fields that drive autonomously. There is one human operator for every three to four units, and instead of sitting on the tractor, they are able to drive it and mow robotically. The operator sets a schedule of what each tractor should do during the day. A human tractor operator typically has a 20 percent overlap when mowing a field, but these autonomous tractors only have a 2 percent overlap. So we can use less fuel and get more done in less hours with fewer men.

It is a challenge to hire people who want to work in agriculture. Most people think of working on a farm and think of sitting on a tractor and sweating. With our robots and autonomous tractors, we have been able to attract a younger group of people who are interested in technology and then they become interested in agriculture. The player kids go out and operate some of our autonomous units. We also have autonomous harvesters that literally have gaming chairs with joysticks, so they run them like a game. I mean, we’re attracting a new workforce that we didn’t even know was possible.

The interviews were edited and condensed.

Spencer Lowell is a photographer whose work explores the relationship between technology, humans and the natural world. His first monograph, “Futures Past,” will be published this fall.