Genetics and ML/AI to Speed up Food Production

Food shortage is looming in a time when researchers harness artificial intelligence to breed new crop varieties for the changing climate. In an article published by PNAS, Tanksley, a professor emeritus at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY said that "We have to double the productivity per acre of our major crops if we're going to stay on par with the world's needs." Even if we prepare the land, lay out a water irrigation system and make a fence around the land, we still need to have the right genetic material (varieties) to be able to have a harvest with yields to meet both household and market demands as well as needs in terms of quantity and quality including nutrition. To speed up the process of developing these varieties within a short period of time, researchers are turning to machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). Researchers are using ML/AI based techniques to help assess rapidly genetic resources for plants with the fastest growth in a particular climate and which genes helped these plants to thrive under such climate condition.