Ag Decision Support Tools
How might AI help farmers test new innovations for their specific needs to inform their investments?
Agriculture producers regularly evaluate investments in new technologies, inputs, and practices to improve productivity, manage costs, and sustain operations. Sound investment decisions require time, data, and the analytical capacity to assess whether a given technology is suited to a specific farm’s conditions. But Washington’s tree fruit industry has documented that the growing volume of available technologies has created a heavy burden of identification, evaluation, and decision-making for individual producers.
Producers face an additional challenge in assessing the reliability of available information. Washington growers have experienced cases in which companies introduced technologies with unmet performance claims and subsequently exited the market, contributing to skepticism toward emerging tools.
In Washington, only 34% of farms reported positive net cash farm income in 2022, leaving the majority with little room to absorb the cost of a failed investment. AI could offer new capacity to support these decisions, enabling producers to assess the likely impact of an investment before committing resources.
Opportunity Areas
The opportunity areas below are meant to inspire, not prescribe. The best ideas may come from directions we haven’t anticipated. We welcome ideas that address one area or span several.
How might we help farmers identify and evaluate solutions based on their specific on-farm problems rather than company marketing claims?
Even when evidence exists that a new technology, input, or practice delivers results, its value depends on whether it addresses the right problem for a specific operation. This will require farm-specific analysis rather than general product claims.
Ideas might include:
- AI-assisted tools that help producers articulate and prioritize their specific operational challenges before evaluating any technology
- Models that take a farm’s own historical data and project the payback of a specific investment over time
- Digital twins and simulations, validated with real farm data, that test technologies and practices against a farm’s specific conditions virtually before adoption
How might Washington’s research institutions, industry, and government coordinate to build resources for evaluating new technologies, inputs, and practices under real Washington farm conditions?
Today, independent evaluation of new technologies, inputs, and practices against real farm conditions is rare. Most evidence available to producers comes from the companies selling the product.
Ideas might include:
- Shared test beds where new technologies, inputs, and practices are evaluated against current alternatives under real Washington farm conditions
- Digital twins validated with real farm data that allow developers to stress-test solutions before going to market
- A recognized home for independent evaluation so farmers know who to trust and vendors know what standard they are being held to
How might farmers of all sizes test technologies and practices without risking capital they cannot afford to lose?
Implementing new technologies and practices requires upfront capital investment and tolerance for uncertain returns that many Washington operations find difficult to absorb given slim margins on economic returns.
Ideas might include:
- Small grants and state-supported pilot programs that let smaller operations test technologies and other practices, especially where adoption supports state goals
- Shared access models, such as test farms or sensor kits, that let farmers evaluate tools on their own conditions without purchasing them
