Artificial intelligence is starting to influence every sphere of our lives, from the media we consume to the data analysis patterns that dictate the ads we see. Recently, however, in a bizarre twist of natural vs artificial, the development of AI is merging with the field of agricultural research and production to redefine the industry. Here's why artificial intelligence in agriculture is so significant. Artificial intelligence is redefining the agricultural sector by automating growing crops, controlling pests, monitoring conditions, and evaluating metadata for scientists and farmers. The world of artificial intelligence can and will continue to impact agriculture, making the entire process more efficient and sustainable for the future of mankind.

Smartphones equipped with artificial intelligence apps take note of our usage data and behavior patterns to make suggestions and automate mundane tasks. Imagine you left your smartphone at home for a day. Can you even think of going through a day without your smartphone? An ever-increasing number of people would say "No." That's how dependent we've become on smartphone technology to deliver the latest in news, entertainment, education, communication, image enhancement, and more.

Until one and a half years ago, Devidas Lonkar from Chakan town of Pune district had to depend on local fertiliser and pesticide sellers to resolve diseases and fungal issues in his crops. Hailing from an agrarian background, the 26-year-old farmer grows sugarcane, cabbage, cauliflower as well as beetroot and groundnuts across a 7-acre plot. "I would describe the symptoms of fungus or disease to the shopkeeper, to which he would then suggest various pesticides and add-ons. It took me a while before realising that these shopkeepers only suggested chemicals with short-lived efficiency that would inevitably bring farmers back to them within a couple of months," he says. "This app ended up saving me a lot of money as well as time. Sitting at home, I can now diagnose plant diseases and have already saved about Rs 1-1.5 lakh in a year that I would otherwise spend on fertilisers," he mentions.

These Indian subsistence farmers know just what to do: Pull out their smartphones and take their picture. The farmers then upload the images with GPS locations to a cloud-based artificial intelligence (AI) app named Plantix. The app identifies the crop type in the image and spits out a diagnosis of a disease, pest or nutrient deficiency. Plantix also aids farmers by recommending targeted biological or chemical treatments for ailing plants, reducing the volume of agrochemicals in groundwater and waterways that can result from overuse or incorrect application of herbicides and pesticides. "Nearly every household in India has a smartphone, and many want to see how Plantix works," says Srikanth Rupavatharam, a digital agriculture scientist with the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in Hyderabad, India, which is collaborating with Plantix's developer to adapt the tool for Telugu and Hindi languages.

Born of research in the Amazon forest, the Plantix mobile app is helping farmers on three continents quickly identify plant diseases using artificial intelligence. For several years in the Brazilian rain forest, a team of young German researchers studied the emission and mitigation of greenhouse gases due to changing land use. The team's analysis was yielding new knowledge, but the farmers they worked with weren't interested in those findings. They wanted to know how to treat crops being ravaged by pathogens. "They couldn't understand why we can estimate the carbon stock of their soil, but we couldn't give them an idea of how to treat damaged plants in an appropriate way," said Robert Strey, one of the researchers.