Data is like crude oil, it needs to be refined, according to Stephen O’Reilly from Enterprise Ireland, who spoke at the Transforming Agriculture with Artificial Intelligence conference in Kildare.

The conference, organised by Agtech Ireland and the Irish Farmers Journal, focused on the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in agriculture.

While a significant amount of data may be available on farms, it needs to be analysed and refined before it becomes useful for farmers.

Accuracy

Stephen explained that the accuracy and usefulness of AI platforms in agriculture heavily depend on the quality of the data used in the models.

Much of the data used in AI models is freely available through satellites and other platforms. However, as Jerome O’Connell, CEO of Proveye, pointed out, the value lies in the programs that analyse this data.

He uses a combination of satellite data and drone-collected data to create models on grass growth.

Challenge

The challenge with developing AI in agriculture is that the sector has many more variables than others, as Dr Steven Davy from TUD explained.

While agriculture operates under the same regulations as other AI platforms, the rules and policies are being outpaced by the speed of technological developments.

Data use

Another concern is the end use of the data. Farmers need to understand the fine print about what their data will be used for and ask technology suppliers whether their data will be used for further development and training, Stephen said.

There is also a significant gap between young and old farmers in terms of technology adoption, he added. However, there needs to be a return on investment, or it will be difficult for farmers to adopt the technology, he said.