As domestic interest in farm work has declined, specialty growers are increasingly reliant on migrants who enter the country legally with an H-2A visa. … Farm labor is notoriously strenuous, and the migrant workers who are increasingly doing it are often vulnerable. 

As many worry about labor shortages, others are looking to artificial intelligence to fill the void.  

“We’re living in very exciting times for AI and agriculture,” said Baskar Ganapathysubramanian, director of the AI Institute for Resilient Agriculture housed at Iowa State University.

AI is already being used to scan fields for weeds and pests and then share that data with farmers to support decision-making. It’s becoming increasingly good at making recommendations too, such as suggesting when and how much to fertilize, he said. 

The next step, according to Ganapathysubramanian, is having AI make decisions and take action using robotic limbs, essentially replacing human labor. 

This is an excerpt. Read the original post here