(US and Canada) Natalia Connolly, Vice President of Data Science at Infinite Acres, speaks with Mark Johnson, Regional VP at Fusion Alliance and Editorial Board Chair, CDO Magazine, about historical data, application of AI and ML in farming, and the future of vertical farming.

As farms grow in complexity and scale, farmers will have to rely on smart technology, the Internet of Things, innovative machine learning, and artificial intelligence algorithms to monitor growth, mitigate business risks, and grow the best food possible. Connoly says that Infinity Acres has collected and retained historical data since the beginning of its farm deployment. From an application standpoint, past information is crucial for comparing current results with previous crops, she explains.

This scenario is also true for conventional farms because they will have to increasingly adopt precision agriculture practices to produce more and better crops. Hence, AI and ML will help farmers grow crops with desired traits such as nutritional flavor, optimize the supply chain, and many other advances.

She points out that vertical farming will be more mainstream 10 years from now, and farms will grow different crops, even the ones that may seem impossible today. Connolly reveals that Infinite Acres’ R&D team is busy with many other crops that might be possible to grow in this environment. It will become more cost-effective with technology in the future.