Thanks to platforms like ChatGPT, farmers have access to artificial intelligence (AI) at their fingertips. While there are advantages to this new technology, it could pay off to tap into a more reliable source when it comes to factors that influence important management decisions.
Take the weather for example. It plays a role in numerous aspects of the farm including planting dates, pest management and even marketing plans. Illinois State Climatologist Trent Ford told FarmWeek while AI is helping scientists become more efficient in analyzing climate data, it isn’t as simple as a farmer asking ChatGPT when to plant.
“You can do that. It’ll give you an answer. And it thinks the answer is right,” Ford said. “But it probably won’t be.”
University of Illinois Extension recently hosted workshops in Marion, Sangamon and Winnebago counties to educate participants about online climate tools and provide hands-on instruction for agricultural related uses.
Duane Friend, University of Illinois climate specialist, told FarmWeek many in the ag industry are unaware of the tools available to them.
“I think a lot of times when they hear the word climate tools, they think we’re talking about tools that will tell them what’s going on 10 years from now,” he said. “All of these things we’re talking about can be done within this growing season.”
The workshop took a deep dive into easily accessible and free online tools like drought and freeze risk maps from Purdue University and soil temperature maps and growing degree day calculators from the Illinois State Water Survey.
“These tools are better refined than ChatGPT is,” Ford said. “We have climate scientists who have experience working with data who are cultivating these tools, who are making it so that it’s pulling in the best information. Whereas right now our AI tools just grab everything off the internet and anything that looks relevant based on the algorithm is thrown in. So, there’s a lot of quality control that’s needed and happening behind the scenes with these tools.”
During the Grain and Feed Association of Illinois’ annual convention, Senior Science Fellow for Nutrient Ag Solutions Eric Snodgrass echoed that growers need to be savvy consumers of artificial intelligence in the climate space.
“Putting this kind of power into the hands of people that don’t know how to use it may allow them to draw conclusions based upon its output that are just not founded in real science or real understanding,” he told FarmWeek. “Some folks might make a story up that is based off of their analysis using something like ChatGPT that actually has no fundamental reason to happen.”
Snodgrass urges growers not to abandon institutional knowledge.
“If you are already working with someone who historically has done a great job helping you market a crop, continue to lean heavily on those people,” he said. “Then ask them if they are using ChatGPT and AI to enhance their abilities and does it make sense what they’re doing?”
Nonetheless, Snodgrass and Ford both expressed excitement about how AI is revolutionizing weather prediction techniques by processing data faster.
“You can do these machine learning techniques on the processing power of a cellphone versus a supercomputer,” Snodgrass said. “So, this is going to be one area that’s going to be a major beneficiary of AI.”
Ford expects to see expansion of AI-supported weather foresting in the next decade.
“Now what we’re seeing is that if people are using a long enough and good enough historical data record, they can train AI-based models and get similar kinds of forecast scores as the big physics-based models,” he said.
But for now, he recommends producers confide in proven maps, calculators and other tools backed by trusted sources. Ford and Friend collected feedback from the climate tools workshops that they plan to incorporate when considering new and updated resources to help farmers improve their bottom line.
This story was distributed through a cooperative project between Illinois Farm Bureau and the Illinois Press Association. For more food and farming news, visit FarmWeekNow.com.