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Senate Ag Committee considers AI applications

The Senate Ag Committee evaluated adoption and complications of artificial intelligence in agriculture during a hearing Tuesday.

In her opening comments, partially generated by AI, Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow stressed the need for farmers to benefit from the data used by the technology, not large corporations.

“High costs are putting AI and precision agriculture technology out of reach for everyone except the largest operations,” she says.  “We must work to ensure that its application does not force even more small and medium-sized farms out of business.”

Dakota State University President Dr. Jose-Marie Griffiths says technology cannot be separated from cyber security and the entire supply chain needs to address security at every level.

“Just before Russia invaded Ukraine, we saw pictures of tractors stuck in fields, unable to move because the systems had been attacked,” she says.  “That created an impetus for us to do some work on trying to protect farm vehicles from similar kinds of attack that could occur.”

University of California Davis professor Dr. Mason Earles says how AI is trained to advise farmers and how models are regulated needs to be explored.  He gave an example of how AI today helps manage pests.

“I show it an image of what I know is to be this certain type of worm and it correctly identifies this type of worm,” he says.  “To me, how we communicate with AI is changing rapidly and they have this soon-to-be role if not already role of being AI advisors.”

Several Senators during the hearing pointed to current legislation that would help speed adoption of technologies for farmers and the need for additional federal funding.