Agriculture has been identified as one of the key areas of growth for artificial intelligence in Australia, but government, research and industry will need to work together to take advantage of the opportunity.
A report by the CSIRO's National AI Centre has found livestock and horticulture are among the top five areas for new applications based on the rate of research being published in Australia compared to the global average.
Livestock production alone was the top performer, seeing research published at almost five times the global rate, while horticulture came in at third place, at more than three times.
Agricultural-adjacent areas such as soil science, animal science and veterinary applications also saw rates above the global average.
Medical laboratory technology, optometry and dermatology joined livestock and horticulture in the top five specialisations.
National AI Centre director Stela Solar said the numbers paralleled the industries where Australia has been successful.
"We know that Australia has strengths in mining, resources, agriculture, and so seeing these now reflected very definitely in AI strengths as well, is a positive sign that we're building on our strengths and we can go even further," Ms Solar said.
"You no longer need to be a data scientist to engage with generative AI, and I think that's really what's accelerated the adoption and the momentum."
Applying AI in ag
According to Ms Solar, there are four pillars to digital transformation: employee engagement, customer engagement, operations, and products and services.
It's no different when it comes to use cases in agriculture.
CSIRO's own eGrazor has found success using sensor-equipped collars and machine learning to measure how much grass cattle are eating, and from there, building a picture of animal health and predicted pasture intake.
New Zealand researcher Saba Samiei, founder of MACSO Technologies, won Innovator of the Year in the 2023 Asia-Pacific Women in AI Awards for a project monitoring sounds on pig farms to identify animals who are unwell before they infect the rest of the herd.
Ms Solar said AI could help farmers in other ways as well, such as around machinery and equipment.
"How do you know whether all of that equipment is operating effectively?" Ms Solar said.
"You may think about tools or applications that enable an employee to see it on their device, or see how each of the irrigation systems are operating, to see where there might be a blockage.
"Or even forecast what the coming weather might create for the landscape and the environment that employees need to manage."
Projects such as LYRO have combined AI with robotics to address staff shortages and food waste by picking produce in a sensitive and delicate manner, while the industry is also trialling new applications when it comes to live exports, such as counting and weighing cattle or automatically monitoring the shipboard environment.
AI is reshaping how farmers work, but Ms Solar said new technologies would improve how operations run on a day-to-day basis rather than replace jobs.
"CSIRO researchers actually use AI to develop optimal layouts of crops - we call it mosaic farming," Ms Solar said.
"The Data61 team within CSIRO put in several elements into an AI model, including the needs that each particular crop has - the kind of weather environment, the landscape - and by calculating and determining these fast dynamics, [the AI model] was able to determine one of the most optimal layouts of a farm.
"That doesn't remove the work of what a farmer needs to do, but it helps the farmer reach new levels of efficiency, resilience and sustainability."
Looking to the future
8.5 per cent of global research into food animals and livestock production was driven by Australian authors, second only to optometry's 26.3pc and well above Australia's average 1.3pc share.
AI job growth in Australia was also found to be growing at more than twice the rate of the next 14 comparative economies, such as the United States, Canada or the UK.
Ms Solar said AI development was clearly accelerating and it was important that government and industry play their part.
"It's reshaping how we engage with each other, it's reshaping economic strengths and social dynamics, Ms Solar said.
"We need to really think about how we bring everyone along... when employees were surveyed within organisations, they found that 94pc of employees actually want to be a part of this transformation."
And for agriculture, opportunities in upskilling and specialisation could be innumerable.
"It's not going to be enough just to be an AI expert," Ms Solar said.
"Being an AI expert in horticulture is going to be a strong differentiator... an AI expert in manufacturing environments is going to look very different from being an AI expert in the health space.
"It's not just AI skills that we want to think about. We want to think about how AI empowers the deep domain and industry expertise that's already in our economy, and helps us go further."
