The vision of researchers at Florida’s new Center for Applied Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Agriculture is to manage farm issues in real time, putting AI directly into farmers’ hands. Construction on the 40,000-square-foot AI facility is underway and is expected to be completed in early 2027.
“We’re not just studying problems. We’re equipping farmers with solutions,” said Nathan Boyd of the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS). Boyd is associate director of the UF/IFAS Gulf Coast Research and Education Center (GCREC) and is in charge of the new AI center there.
Groundbreaking for the new center was held Nov. 7 at GCREC, where faculty have been helping farmers manage issues for 100 years. Scientists at the new AI facility will expedite the process of getting technology to growers.
“From the very beginning, the thing that was very clear was that we want to play an integral part of not just coming up with a prototype, but we want to begin defining what is the pathway to commercialization,” said Boyd. “We want to get useful tools into the hands of the people that need them.”
That’s not just a matter of getting technology in growers’ hands; it’s also getting grower buy-in.
“We want to get that tool in a form that they (growers) can use and in a form that they want,” Boyd said. “It’s that close relationship between the researcher and our stakeholders.”
Sometimes, farmers resist new technological advancements. It can feel risky. But in gathering data before breaking ground on the AI center, Boyd and others reached out to farmers to learn their priorities. That process will continue.
“Our approach to this is going to be farm-focused research priorities,” Boyd said. “We’ve already started working on it. We meet with farmers and say, ‘What is it that you need the most?’ And from that, we can take a synergistic approach to development, where we take the best scientists at the University of Florida and other institutions, bring them together and say, ‘This is the problem. How do we address it?’” Then, scientists will work with stakeholders to make sure they can help the farmer manage his or her problem.
“It’s all about grower adoption,” Boyd said. “If growers are involved in the process, to create something that they’ve identified that they need, as well as designed it in a way that they want it, adoption is not an issue.”
Source: UF/IFAS
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