via Bayer AG Sponsored Content How AI complements human expertise to advance farming Artificial intelligence provides farmers and their advisers with new, deeper insights to help decision-making throughout the growing season.

Artificial intelligence or AI, and its application in new digital farming tools, is helping to shape the future of agriculture. Understandably, the potential of these technologies and the changes they will bring to farming also brings some trepidation.

Are these new tools designed to replace my own knowledge, or the people I depend upon today? The answer is no; farmers and their advisers need to update their skills and practices to take full advantage of digital tools, but their own knowledge and intuition, and the skills and experience of their trusted advisers will continue to be central to their success. The good news is this combination of digital and human insights can help farmers boost both the profitability and the sustainability of their operations.

Today, AI already powers many of the tools in our digital agriculture toolkit, enabling us to provide deeper, more accurate and more helpful insights to farmers faster than ever before. These insights help farmers and their advisers to make more informed decisions on how to manage their crops through the entire growing season, increasing their odds for bountiful harvests while potentially reducing the use of precious natural resources along the way.

For example, at The Climate Corporation , our digital farming subsidiary at Bayer, we are working on a solution that deploys AI to identify specific crop diseases automatically, based upon real-time image analysis. Whereas 10 years ago, a farmer would need to walk a field to find the problem, work with agronomic advisers to research the potential issue and potential solutions, then decide on and implement the solution.

“Are these new tools designed to replace my own knowledge, or the people I depend upon today? The answer is no.”

In the very near future, AI will fast-forward this process: A drone could capture images of a field and AI-driven image-recognition tools could identify the exact issue and quickly recommend solutions. The farmer and his or her advisers could then evaluate the recommendations and determine which of the solutions would make the most sense given local conditions and their collective experience.

Another area where AI is expediting and improving key decisions is in seed selection and placement. Picking the right seeds and genetics to plant is one of the most important decisions a farmer makes every season. Traditionally, this is another choice made in consultation with seed dealers and agronomic advisers who are familiar with the local environment, the farmers’ fields and what has worked well for other farmers in the area.

Next year in the U.S., The Climate Corporation will roll out a beta offering for Seed Advisor, a groundbreaking predictive seed selection and placement model. This AI-driven tool uses the largest proprietary seed genetics library along with years of regional seed performance data to predict the best-performing seed for the unique conditions of each individual field.

“AI already powers many of the tools in our digital agriculture toolkit, enabling us to provide deeper, more accurate and more helpful insights to farmers faster than ever before.”

We’re seeing very clear and compelling results from pre-commercial field trials conducted in the U.S. in 2017. In those trials, Seed Advisor demonstrated an average advantage of six bushels per acre, with a win rate of nearly 80 percent. Numbers like these are eye-catching for farmers, and we are seeing even better results on broader-scale testing this year, as the algorithm improves as more data is incorporated into the system. We see Seed Advisor as a tool that supports farmers and their local advisers in the critical seed selection decision.

Digital farming advances will bring change and agricultural professionals need to adapt to take full advantage of these tools, and adjust their processes to factor in digital farming opportunities. Those who are successfully adopting AI-driven digital farming tools are currently seeing the benefits of more-informed decisions, which ultimately helps ensure that harvests are maximized, use of natural resources is minimized and in-season crop management challenges are dealt with more quickly and effectively. The Common Agriculture Policy, other EU environmental legislation and national laws must also keep up with the pace of digital innovation to enable European farmers to take full advantage of these opportunities to sustainably improve productivity.

Farmers face many incredibly difficult decisions each season. The outcomes of those decisions have enormous implications that affect livelihoods and families. Advanced computational technologies, like AI, can help address the stress that farmers face. It’s the job of innovators and industry leaders to ease the angst by bringing digital tools and data science that have a positive impact on harvests.

I’ve never met a farmer who didn’t welcome good advice from a trusted adviser. We see a future where that advice is augmented with digital farming tools.

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