Source : Perth Now news
Farmer Andrew Gill jokes that he first thought AI stood for artificial insemination in cattle.
The beef, sheep and cotton farmer once had little interest in artificial intelligence and didn’t want to learn about something he assumed would be useless.
But having adopted technology including solar panels and sensors on his family farm at Narromine, central western NSW, Mr Gill agreed to join an AI pilot program designed for farmers.
Since April, he has been trialling AI agent Farm Assistant, which collates data from his paddock sensors, livestock markets, weather agencies and his cash flow to help him make informed decisions.
Farmers can record voice notes about their work and take photographs, which are ingested and stored in their databases.
Automating admin tasks alone has saved Mr Gill and his wife Clare about five hours a month, he said.
“It’s a complete change of mindset; every tradesman, businessperson, is going to get left behind if they’re not using it,” Mr Gill told AAP.
The agriculture sector has one of the lowest uptakes of AI, Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows.
That was likely because technology developers have pursued farmers for decades, Regen Farmers Mutual co-director Andrew Ward said.
The farmer-owned co-operative, which helps producers navigate environmental and carbon markets, is developing Farm Assistant to see if it can directly support agriculture.
“Someone’s always got a new witches’ brew, there’s always magic happening in agriculture and there’s always snake oil salesmen,” Mr Ward said.
“The difference here is farmers are making use of AI for themselves, so they get the benefit as opposed to a third party.”
Despite a slower uptake than other sectors, agriculture has long harnessed AI and computer vision for spraying and livestock monitoring.
Developers would need to be transparent about their ethics and data protections, ag-tech consultant and Ryka Global chief executive Vi Nguyen said, as producers valued the privacy of their finances.
“If one of us implementing these systems does it wrong, it can really affect the whole industry and the trust farmers have with subsequent players,” Ms Nguyen told AAP.
The launch of the Farm Assistant pilot comes as a rural community grapples with AI company Anthropic’s deal to build the nation’s largest data centre in Queensland’s Darling Downs.
Some farmers from the region are concerned about how the centre will be powered and where the water required for cooling will be sourced.
A federal inquiry into data centres has been told consultation on such projects must be rigorous.
Especially at a time when regions are also dealing with renewable energy and mining developments, disaster recovery and housing shortages.
Mr Ward and Mr Gill both acknowledge the challenges AI presents but are confident resource efficiency and technology will evolve.
“Before, I’d always thought that AI was going to make the community dumber by just using it to do everything for you,” Mr Gill said.
“Using AI as a tool is a much better way of looking at things.
“AI is another tool.”
