AI in Agriculture

How might AI in agriculture improve the fortunes of Ecuadorian farmers? To answer that question we must first take a step back.

The term artificial intelligence has been thrown around as a buzzword since at least the 2010s, though most members of the public were not quite clear about the nature of this phenomenon until recently. Things became more clarified with the launch of the AI-powered chat bot developed by Open AI, ChatGPT. By mimicking human-like language skills and answering prompts in a sophisticated way, ChatGPT was generally perceived as an awe-inspiring innovation by the public. Finally, people were able to see a real manifestation of AI and its powers. ChatGPT has allegedly aced some supposedly challenging standardized tests designed for humans, including the US’ multistate bar examination—a six-hour-long test that aspiring lawyers must pass. The chat bot has reportedly also passed the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT), a cognitively demanding test that determines the new admissions to elite medical schools in North America.

The question that haunts many of us at this stage is, “if AI can perform as well as a good lawyer or an aspiring doctor on decidedly challenging tests, can it also perform my job better than I do?” Since the launch of ChatGPT and later Google’s Bard, many people have been living in the fear of losing their jobs to AI, despite the many reassurances by Open AI and other tech pioneers that AI is mainly intended to make life easier for humans—not to replace them. Although language-based AI is capable of passing standardized tests, it still can practice neither law nor medicine due to its shortcomings, such as lack of intuition, limited creativity, and a particularly troublesome feature of large language models (LLMs) known as AI hallucination: creating strings of plausible sounding answers that are largely untrue. In fact, several medical bodies around the world have warned their members that acting upon diagnoses made purely by AI may lead to tragic consequences. This juxtaposition of being flawed and seemingly all-knowing at the same time has made AI an intriguing phenomenon.

From a practical point of view, however, AI is competent in many areas—at least as long as it is used under the watch of a human operator. As many as 8% of businesses in North America are already routinely using AI tools such as ChatGPT in their businesses processes in some way or another, according to The Economist’s weekly podcast, and the number is going up quickly. The practice is spreading to the rest of the world, including to the Latam region. Ecuador is home to a sizable private sector, whose various members may soon decide to use AI tools in their businesses. The largest sectors in Ecuador are oil and gas, mining, agrifood, and trade. And AI tools can make life easier for various individuals employed across these sectors.

Take the agriculture industry for instance. It is considered to be a strategic sector for the nation, creating jobs—directly and indirectly—for up to 40% of the population, and an even higher percentage in the rural parts of the country. Crops grown by Ecuadorian farmers such as maize, bananas, beans, cassava, potatoes, rice, and coffee are exported to the world, accounting for roughly 10% of the GDP. However, lack of training in agricultural sciences is a major obstacle for traditional small-scale farmers, sometimes leading to failed crops. And AI can be a help in this regard. There have always been some attempts to provide the farming communities with the right agricultural knowhow. International charitable institutions such as the WE Agricultural Learning Center (ALC) have been helping smallholders to maximize their yields and keep their crops immune from diseases. Such courses offer a learning opportunity that some farmers have never had. The ALC believes that their classes have made a big difference in cacao farming in Ecuador’s Amazonian region since 2017. However, such charities have a limited capacity to train people and answer their questions, while AI solutions do not.

AI can be used extensively by local communities to take good care of their crops and decide on a pricing strategy for their yields more efficiently. “Price forecasting for crops based on yield rates that help predict total volumes produced are invaluable in defining pricing strategies for a given crop,” according to a 2021 article by Forbes that focused on the uses of AI in agriculture . “Understanding yield rates and quality levels of crops help agricultural firms, co-ops, and farmers better negotiate for the best possible price for their harvests,” it goes on. Of course, this article was published before popular and commercially available AI platforms such as ChatGPT or Google Bard were accessible to the public. Now, farmers and agricultural cooperatives can consult these language-based AI models more easily than ever, though they must formulate their prompts carefully and be aware of the typical misunderstandings that AI is sometimes prone to. In any case, farmers can now put many queries they may have to AI chat bots: quick solutions to prevent plant diseases based on the observable symptoms, best irrigation strategies for their crops, or the best time window to carry out their harvest in their region.

In the past, farmers in remote areas had to rely on their traditional methods, consult specialists, which was rarely an option, or resort to search engines such as Google. But, while a Google search would ultimately lead to one single answer, which might or might not be true, a language-based AI’s answer will contain the distilled essence of thousands of good answers from books, academic papers, and agricultural guidelines stored in its database. The educational use of AI is by no means limited to agriculture, as it is already put into use for general education in Ecuador. In the absence of private tutors in the more remote parts of the country, a joint effort between the ministry of higher education and technology and the World Bank has led to the introduction of “artificial intelligence (AI) assisted academic support in math to students beginning their tertiary education,” according to the World Bank, meaning “AI-enabled access to large-scale, low-cost academic remediation programs.” More sectors are likely to follow suit soon, though we should remain cautious about the shortcomings of language-based AI and its potential to mislead.