"Artificial intelligence in precision agriculture has mostly been about agricultural scientists adopting what's been going on in computer science. We need to flip that around and develop AI for precision agriculture."
Greg Falzon, associate professor of Precision Agriculture Systems at Flinders University, says the AI era is "already here" and there are several challenges to address for agriculture to make the most of the groundbreaking technology.
With a background in computer science and its application to farming, experience in AI frontier research, and having been involved in numerous AI agricultural trials, Dr Falzon was well equipped to offer Society of Precision Agriculuture Australia expo attendees his thoughts on what impact AI would have on farming moving forward.
He said AI's impact would likely be indirect, such as in the build of sytems that bring autonomous tractors to life.
While AI is often still looked at as a futuristic concept, Dr Falzon said it had already infiltrated society much more than we'd realised - from cars to smartphones to chatGPT.
AI and machine learning is already embedded in many ag technologies including precision spot sprayers, weeding robots, and dairy robots.
Dr Flazon has been involved in the design of baiting stations that use species recognition to only allow the bait to be taken by pests, not native animals.
He also helped develop technology to use facial recognition in cattle herds.
He says this is just the tip of the iceberg though and "the possibilities are endless."
Recent data at the Australian Computer Science digital pulse, the state of play for the computing industry, forecasted a 793 per cent growth in artificial intelligence, Dr Falzon said.
While the telecommunications, internet, automotive and financial services sectors have been the major adopters thus far, that is "changing rapidly".
While AI's further encroachment into society seems inevitable, Dr Falzon believes its use in agriculture will likely be impacted by factors such as cost, accessibility and - warranted - skepticism.
"We need to have case studies and proven benefits of this technology," he said.
"Show me how it's going to improve productivity and improve the bottom line.
"At the same time, we do not want to be left behind. If we don't adopt some of this technology and other countries do we might be left at a competitive disadvantage.
"We also have to ensure our workforce is ready for the technology and willing to accept it."
