A new approach to agrifood sectors with artificial intelligence

The world's population is growing in an unprecedented way and farmers need to feed a growing population. Moreover, food security has been a challenge as different sectors are making the related targets hard to reach. At a global level there are shocks that are difficult to come out of. Through research done by Innocent Kutyauripo, Munyaradzi Rushambwa, Lyndah Chiwazi, artificial intelligence applications have become a solution for the agrifood sectors. Would you be happy to know that your food is being created with artificial intelligence?

Artificial intelligence making a highlight in agrifood systems?

The statistics show that, “there is a continued increase in food insecurity at the global level since 2019, and 670 million people (8% of the global population) are projected to face hunger in 2030”. These statistics are shocking as the 2015, 2030 Agenda was placed to end hunger but this is not the case as shown on a global level. The issue that is leading up to this- is that resilience is missing in the food system. This then leads to food food insecurity and what puts more pressure on food insecurity is the growing population. With that said, it has been mentioned that the option to meet a growing population's needs is to explore technology in the ecosystem of food production. The explored technology is artificial intelligence (AI). According to Walshmediamedical, artificial intelligence is able to predict the crops that can be planted in a year and when to harvest and sow with soil management data sources in a particular area. These include moisture, temperature, soil analysis, historical crop performance and weather. Similarly,  Innocent Kutyauripo, Munyaradzi Rushambwa, Lyndah Chiwazi defines artificial intelligence being a modernised technology that replaces human intelligence in decision making and troubleshooting.  

Further, there are different types of AI that are mentioned which includes, “Machine Learning (ML), Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing, Artificial Neural Networks, Ro-botics and Expert Systems. These subsets of AI have been used to make decisions on different processes in the food chain ecosystem”.

The benefits of artificial intelligence in agrifood systems

The article mentions that artificial intelligence is a method of combating poverty amongst human beings through its strategies in agriculture where it is able to increase food production. The mentioned benefits of artificial intelligence is as follows: “artificial intelligence applications play a major role in the improvement of the four pillars of food security namely accessibility, stability, utilisation and availability”. A convention of scientific disciplines is known to backbone artificial intelligence, such as practices using mathematics, scientific theories, probabilities and statistics and computers being able to imitate cognitive human behaviours. Through definite results artificial intelligence has been known to be advantageous in the field of agriculture including marketing, harvesting and the production of crops. According to google search results, artificial intelligence is mainly used to reduce the amount of time a human takes to do a task and therefore technology is used. Further, the decision making is also a lot quicker and smarter. 

How artificial intelligence is implemented in agrifood systems

There were conducted reviews on how AI is used in agrifood systems in pre-harvesting and post-harvesting activities, vegetable and fruit production, and the supply chain of vegetable and fruit production. The researchers' reviews are as follows; “the reviews explained were focused on various stages of the food system but not on the entire food chain. There is minimal information available on Artificial Intelligence and its use in the entire food system, hence the need for a review that assesses the application of artificial intelligence in all the stages of the food system in one paper”.

The research conducted on artificial intelligence on agrifood systems

There was a collection of peer reviewed articles and a systematic review was conducted. The list of themes that were searched were: “agriculture, crop production, animal production, harvesting, post-harvest storage, postharvest handling, food processing, food distribution, food consumption, food waste management, and food system.” Through research the findings showed that artificial intelligence methods are being implemented on various occasions in the agrifood system. 

The future of artificial intelligence on the agrifood system

The reason why AI is being preferred is because it is quick, fast and replaces human intelligence with technology. Further, AI helps in the detection of animal and crop diseases and decision making. Artificial intelligence can further be used in pest management, irrigation, crop disease management, soil monitoring, and robocropping. Livestock can also be monitored by AI. In the research, it has been said that AI is able to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal that is related to helping meet hunger needs and progress the food system. The article mentions the benefits of using AI now and the future to come: “with the use of AI-driven technologies that do not diminish natural resources, the global need for zero hunger and climate action will be met. Furthermore, AI technologies would be used to predict weather patterns, and evaluate farms for the presence of diseases or pests and inadequate plant nutrition. It enables an exceptional ability to analyse data and computationally discover complex relationships and patterns thus reducing time-wasting. AI is a potential tool to enable and facilitate a transition to sustainable and improved food systems such as school feeding programs. It can help ease the burden of administrative processes.” 

At the end, AI will be filling in a huge missing gap and will achieve and build a resilient agricultural and food system.