Des Moines, Iowa: Artificial intelligence is becoming a critical tool for farmers, and those who don’t embrace it will be left behind. That’s the message Ranveer Chandra shared at the World Food Prize Norman E. Borlaug Dialogue in Des Moines, Iowa.
Chandra is Vice President in M365 Copilot and Chief Technology Officer of Agri-Food at Microsoft, and the creator of Microsoft FarmBeats — a precision agriculture platform that combines IoT sensors, drones, satellite imagery and AI to help farmers optimise resources such as water, soil and pesticides .
He said farmers should be using AI applications in four ways:
1. Empower Employees
“We are seeing farmers develop their own farmer assistant for every employee,” Chandra said. One task they are trained to do is identify crop pests and diseases from a photo, then offer advice for treatment .
2. Engage With Customers
Chandra said AI can help farmers share real-time information on crop forecasts with consumers and other parts of the value chain, and help determine the best time to sell their crop .
3. Rethink Business Processes
AI applications can use data to help farmers determine when to plant, irrigate and harvest. See-and-spray technology also uses AI .
4. Create New Technology
“This is the one I’m most passionate about,” Chandra said. “For example, farmers can do small field trials on the farm using AI.” Then, the application can be used to interpret and measure data in multiple ways .
