What is precision agriculture? UGA expert explains drones, AI and the future of ag tech

What does precision agriculture actually look like in the field?

In this episode of Cultivating Curiosity, we're joined by Luan Oliveira, assistant professor in the University of Georgia Department of Horticulture and UGA Cooperative Extension precision agriculture specialist, to break down how artificial intelligence, robotics, autonomous sprayers, drone technology and smart farming tools are reshaping modern agriculture.

Oliveira explains how precision agriculture is enabling farmers to work more efficiently and sustainably, meeting the demands of a growing population, and creating new opportunities for the next generation of ag tech professionals.

Resources:

• Agribots: Autonomous Ground Robots for Specialty Crops
• UGA Institute for Integrative Precision Agriculture (IIPA)

Content from CAES:

• Creating an Extension-driven vision for smarter farming
• UGA's Precision Horticulture Lab: Transforming farm operations with drone technology

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Follow CAES on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn and check out UGA Extension on on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn for the latest updates.

Transcript

Jordan Powers: 0:00

Welcome to Cultivating Curiosity, where we get down and dirty with the experts on all the ways science and agriculture touch our lives, from what we eat to how we live. I'm Jordan Powers.

Emily Cabrera: 0:12

And I'm Emily Cabrera. We're from the University of Georgia's College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

Sound Effect: 0:19

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Emily Cabrera: 0:20

We are on the UGA Tifton campus today with Luan Oliveira, assistant professor in the CAES Department of Horticulture and precision agriculture specialist for UGA Extension. Luan, thank you for joining us today.

Luan Oliveira: 0:32

Thank you.

Emily Cabrera: 0:33

In a nutshell, what is precision agriculture?

Luan Oliveira: 0:36

So, precision ag is a small piece of what we call digital ag. Precision ag is a management strategy that helps us on better manage the variability of our fields. So think of a football stadium, you think that that beautiful green lawn, like that green turf, is uniform, but no, there's a lot of science there to actually apply the proper fertilizers to where it needs the most, so all that color is uniform, so that's precision ag. You put your nutrients or your fertilizer, your chemicals where they need to be. Digital ag is something broader, and that's where we get into robotics. So digital ag is the integration of precision ag, which is the management strategy, IoT, internet of things, and computer communication. So, if you see an autonomous tractor running on a field that's more digital ag than precision ag, because that tractor might not be doing the variable nutrient application that we need the management strategy that I just told you guys, so that's it.

Emily Cabrera: 1:44

What opportunities does precision ag open for recent grads in this area?

Luan Oliveira: 1:49

When you think of people that has an agriculture background versus the people that has an AI background, it's easier for a person to learn the coding, the AI piece, than that guy that knows a lot about AI to learn about plant physiology. So I think that that's where the opportunity is, is recent grads to study classes related to AI, related to precision agriculture, so they can pursue these jobs in big tech companies, where they can apply their knowledge in agriculture, but also apply the knowledge that they gain on artificial intelligence and technology in general. I've heard from big tech companies like Microsoft, when I was at the World Agritech Summit, that this is one of the most valuable backgrounds, where people have the plant backgrounds, like the physiology, weeds, production, nutrient management, but they also have the coding, the AI background as well.

Jordan Powers: 2:54

Ag tech and precision agriculture have become buzzwords, and we're even starting to hear more about AI in ag, but can we actually break that down for folks that aren't familiar with production agriculture? What do these technologies actually look like in the field?

Luan Oliveira: 3:07

There's a way to break it down, and the way is prior talking about AI, what AI means, right? Artificial intelligence is basically the capacity of a computer to mimic human intelligence, so that's what we call artificial. So when you get a common or a conventional implement, I would say sprayer, because that's where AI is most applicable now. If you got a sprayer and you put a computer there with electro hydraulic systems like nozzles, and then you train that AI to understand what the weeds are, so it's basically you give thousands of examples to that computer and then say, hey, computer, next time you see a weed, you open that nozzle on the top of that weed. So I think that there's a short way to break it down. So it's using computers that mimic human intelligence to enhance the capacity of those implements, because the way it has been done is that, hey, I'm going to spray, so I spray the whole field, places where there are weeds and places where there are not weeds there. When we use AI to identify exactly where those weeds are, we can do something called spot spraying. So, we spray these spots that we actually need.

Jordan Powers: 4:18

So, in a story that we published last year, and we'll link to that in the show notes. You said something that I think is really beautiful. You said, quote, 'The adoption of these technologies is creating a sustainable ecosystem, not only environmentally speaking, but also socially and economically.' You talked a little bit about this with spot spraying versus spraying an entire field, but can you expand a little bit on this three-pronged benefit?

Luan Oliveira: 4:40

Yes, so think of sustainability not only as an environment but as a holistic approach. If a grower adopts a technology that, instead of paying for a whole tank of herbicide, for example, some of these technologies, they're proven to reduce that amount by sixty percent. So if you spend that amount of chemicals, like if you're a big enough grower that spend that amount of chemicals for the entire season, and then you cut your costs in 60% already, it's not that money going back to your pocket, but it's money that you did not spend, and then that goes to the environment as well, because you sprayed 60% less chemicals inside of that field that money that the grower didn't spend can be applied to somewhere else, that's where the social sustainability goes, because that money stays in the community, and then that's the social, so that money was not spent, that money can be directed to somewhere else, which is other label-related activities. So if we do a quick math, if a farmer spends a million dollars in labor per year, and we could save 100,000 on chemicals, that's 10% back to that labor workforce.

Jordan Powers: 5:55

Absolutely, it's this cycle that we can kind of redistribute.

Luan Oliveira: 5:58

Exactly.

Jordan Powers: 5:59

To the benefit of both, hopefully that labor, the grower, the environment, the community.

Luan Oliveira: 6:04

Yes.

Jordan Powers: 6:05

And when done right, it can be a beautiful thing.

Luan Oliveira: 6:06

And that's important to note that ag tech is pretty new on the market, like robotics, AI, and that's why we've been doing research on that at the early stages, because that's a really expensive activity. As a precision ag Extension specialist, my job is to evaluate technologies and bring those results to the growers. And technologies, ag tech in general, they're here to help not only on the efficiency or chemical input savings in general, but also we have a big responsibility of feeding a projected population of 9.8 to 10 billion people by 2050 so I think that all these technologies combined - artificial intelligence, spraying technologies, mechanical weeders, autonomous harvesters, autonomous tractors- all of these technologies are going to play an important role on helping us to do that job.

Emily Cabrera: 6:58

Now I'm kind of wondering, what is the coolest piece of technology that you're working with at the moment?

Luan Oliveira: 7:04

Okay, there are a lot (laughter). So, we have robots that run the fields autonomously. One of them is solar powered, so it runs the whole day without swapping batteries or touching it, and is a spot sprayer. The robot sees the weeds and spray it, only has 40 gallons worth of tank, so it needs to do a spot spray. It's not that I retrofitted a big sprayer with a big tank. Another cool technology we've been working with is a mechanical weeder, so it has several arms, so when the robot sees a weed, it drops one of those arms and uproots that weed is not that we are spraying chemicals, we're just taking that weed out of the ground. AI models for plant counting, object identification, estimating yield before harvesting. So this is everything that AI is actually providing us within the short term that it became a buzz, it became a boon in the whole world, not only in agriculture, but I think companies, universities were doing a good job on bringing that AI to the agricultural world to increase efficiency and profitability of these growers,

Jordan Powers: 8:15

And we will, of course, link to the video we did on the drone dock, your team's spray robot, we'll link that in the show notes, so that listeners can see more about that. I've had a chance to see it in action out at UGA Grand Farm, and it is just incredible to see that technology in action.

Luan Oliveira: 8:31

Yeah, so technologies I mentioned, those are technologies that are out of the market, but at the Precision Horticulture Lab, we've been developing our own tech as well. So, one example is the drone dock. We're actually repurposing drone dock as something that you're not going to need, actually the whole dock anymore, the whole system is going to be on the drone, of course. We're going to need regulations from the FAA, and also robotics. When they are spray robots, they need to be in the field, and they're really slow, because you cannot put a robot to run at 10 miles an hour. The one that we have actually runs at a mile an hour. It has a 40 foot boom. It can cover a good bit of area per day, but when it needs to be refilled, either it stops in a point and you have to go there and refill it, or you purchase a refilling station and the robot comes to that refilling station by itself and refills itself, but in the lab we're developing something that is going to break that system. We're developing a robot to refill other robots, it's the same robot that you saw at Grand Farm, but a robot is going to have a robotic arm that goes there and then refills the other robot, and that robot, which is slower, doesn't need to run a whole mile at a mile an hour to come back to the refilling station. So that's something we're developing currently in the lab.

Jordan Powers: 9:48

We've covered a lot in a short period of time, and obviously we just heard a bit about your lab. You are non-stop busy all the time, so we are so appreciative of you taking a bit of time to chat with us today. Just thank you so much, and best of luck this season.

Luan Oliveira: 9:59

Thank you.

Sound Effect: 9:59

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Jordan Powers: 10:00

Thanks for listening to Cultivating Curiosity, a podcast produced by the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. A special thanks to Mason McClintock for our music and sound effects. Find more episodes wherever you get your podcasts.