In my more techno-optimistic moments, I dream of the future I grew up with: the Jetsons.
The 1960s cartoon family flew around in spacecraft and had robot butlers and maids to do all their cooking and cleaning. I try to justify my enthusiasm for this utopia by not just believing that it would make my life easier but that it could lead to better health across society. If almost every household (and restaurant) had a robot that cooked from scratch and did all the cleanup, people would eat more whole foods and less ultra-processed junk. Farmers would have more opportunities, and human health would improve.
Like I said, it’s a pipe dream. But more than that, it probably also channels a type of thinking that misunderstands where technology is going. Rather than giving us robots to do human work, it seems more likely that artificial intelligence is providing the opportunity to understand and plan for complex situations, which we humans then still have to tackle.
Similar to my Jetsons scenario, the simplistic vision for the future of ag is robots roaming the fields 24 hours a day, weeding, spraying, harvesting, etc. Anyone who’s tried one of these prototypes, though, knows that such machines are often no match for the first groundhog hole they encounter.
The more realistic way AI is going to influence farming is in its ability to take in complex data sets and make them understandable and actionable for farmers. The grower wanting to begin experimenting with more complex rotations now cannot just research what other growers have done successfully but to input a huge amount of data (physical and biological soil tests, crops grown over the years, irrigation, drainage, etc.) and receive scheduled recommendations for how to incorporate a third or fourth or fifth crop. Likewise with implementing cover crops, foliar nutrition spraying, livestock integration, and so forth.
This in no way means that baseline knowledge isn’t still necessary. As an editor, I know what these advanced tools produce in the hands of people who don’t really know how to write. Only real farmers have the sense and experience to know what’s plausible and what’s bonkers. And that baseline knowledge comes not just through years of experience but also through deeper and more general learning via books and magazines, observation, and conversations with fellow skilled farmers.
My sister recently recommended a cooking app that has helped her simplify her life. You scan your old recipes (even handwritten) or copy them from online sources, put together a weekly meal plan, and the app puts all the ingredients you need in your online grocery cart for home delivery and gives precise, simplified instructions at exact times so you can have dinner ready. It’s not a robot that cooks for her, but it’s taken a complex logistical problem off her plate.
The type of farming we advocate at Acres U.S.A. is ecological, and ecology, the interaction between plants, animals, and the environment, is among the most complex of all scientific fields. Better robots alone certainly won’t help us farm in tune with nature. But access to tools that help us better understand the interaction between the components of our farm ecosystem and help us apply that knowledge likely will.
And that’s the view from the country.
