How generative AI can play a role in your farm

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) responds to instructions by creating text, images, spreadsheets and other types of media. By analyzing existing data to identify patterns, these large language models enable users to quickly generate new content. Common GenAI platforms you may have heard of include CoPilot, ChatGPT or Gemini.

The number of people using GenAI chatbot tools is growing exponentially, and various industry-specific applications are also on the rise.

“The level of trust for GenAI has grown,” says Morgan Wadsworth, innovation specialist at FCC. “It has shifted because more people have realized the value, have learned to trust the conversations and want to have deeper and longer conversations.”

Farm business uses

Since GenAI tools can converse about any topic, farm business owners can use them as built-in learning services or always-on decision assistants.

Consider real examples of what you can do with GenAI on your farm and how you can reap the benefits:

1. Strategic planning and financial management support

• Generate business plans, grant proposals or funding applications

• Analyze financial scenarios and business opportunities

• Interpret market trends and commodity prices

2. Operational decision support

• Analyze historical and local data to generate production recommendations

• Troubleshoot pests, weeds or equipment issues

• Gain insights into complex data sets

3. Business and communications support

• Generate marketing content for websites, social media posts and customer e-mails

• Summarize documents or emails

• Develop employee training content

By automating tasks and reducing time spent on research, analysis, or writing, GenAI improves efficiency and productivity, allowing you and your team to focus on other business activities.

Using these tools can also enhance creativity and innovation by generating new ideas and prompting questions you may not have considered yet.

Tools to use

Root AI, FCC’s free GenAI tool, is made specifically for the Canadian agriculture and food industry.Root AI, FCC’s free GenAI tool, is made specifically for the Canadian agriculture and food industry.

It is trained across a wide range of topics, so it can act as a virtual farm assistant and provide practical advice, recommendations, and solutions.

“People are really using it to have financial and business conversations, perhaps as a sounding board or first set of eyes and ears before they go and approach a human farm advisor to have those conversations,” Wadsworth says.

While hundreds of millions of users rely on general-purpose GenAI tools, he says there is also demand for additional applications to be developed by trusted agricultural companies.

How to start

Wadsworth encourages farmers to jump in. Try having conversations with GenAI. But, he adds, it’s not like an internet search.

The more information and context provided in the conversation or prompt with the GenAI, the better the output data will be. A recommended rule for optimal results is to ask the tool to act as the type of advisor you are looking for and then write the prompt as if you are talking to that expert.

“If you’re researching farm transition, for example, ask it to reply as a farm transition planner and give it some context by providing your age, operation type and size, the dynamics of your family and more,” he says.

Wadsworth also advises producers to err on the side of caution and make sure to fact-check GenAI responses. Although the tools appear very confident in their answers, some could produce inaccurate results because they are either trained on false data or out of date.

Root is based on reliable information and cites sources for its responses, so information can be verified. FCC also commits to keeping your information secure and private by not sharing it with external sources.

While AI doesn’t replace farmers or farm advisors, leveraging it with critical thinking can benefit your farm business.

From an AgriSuccess article by Rebecca Hannam.