Artificial intelligence is the key to consistency in agriculture , but Capgemini believes natural crop changes are challenging long-term technology adoption

Artificial intelligence ( AI ) is reshaping the world in which farmers manage their crops . The industry is critical and , thanks to the intervention of new agriculture technology ( agtech ), consistency is highly achievable in comparison to the origins of farming , from which multiple methods arose .

AI and agtech are necessary for farmers to ensure that food sources can provide for a growing population under challenging market conditions . The global IT services and IT consulting provider Capgemini recognises that the industry faces many challenges , but that breaking down those barriers will result in more opportunities for the implementation of AI and data analytics in the industry .

Human knowledge advances AI in agtech

In an ever-changing natural environment , technology still has its limitations . Highlighted by Kevin Potard , Tech Field leader in Agriculture for Science & AI at Capgemini , biology is one of the major challenges that impacts the response to

AI development in agriculture . Potard was involved in creating AI-capable crop mapping for more than 70 crop types in France with incredible success , enabling differentiation between wheat and barley . However , he explains that the year-on-year changes to climate and crops is tricky .

“ We had to be able to differentiate wheat from barley on 15m resolution pixels . We succeeded in obtaining more than 98 % of classification success . In this case , the biggest risk we identified is that it works well this year but not next year ,” says Potard .

“ Indeed , from one year to the next , the plants do not behave exactly the same way , either because of the weather or the variety sown . We spent a lot of energy orchestrating our different models to take into account this biological variability .”

Expanding on this , Oliver Lofink , Senior Director , Innovation & Strategy at Capgemini Invent , says this “ depends on what region we talk about and what kind of crop is being produced ”.