It feels like everything is all about artificial intelligence (AI) these days. Every new phone or laptop is jammed full of AI features and most of the time, I find myself wondering if they’re even worth using. Sure, generative AI is cool, but I can only take so many AI hallucinations.
Well, one Ontario-based greenhouse is using AI powered by Intel for something actually useful: farming. Nature Fresh Farms’ Leamington, Ontario-based greenhouse and headquarters is leveraging Intel tech to improve multiple aspects of its farming operation, such as monitoring plant health, ideal harvesting time and more.
Nature Fresh Farms uses over 2,000 sensors and cameras to monitor plants from the moment they’re planted until the produce leaves the facility, including temperature, sun exposure, size, shape and more. Then that data is used to help farmers determine the level of irrigation needed. And Intel says its Xeon data centre processors help handle all that data and speed up processing and analyzing time from a two or three-hour wait to just 30 minutes.
An example shared by Nature Fresh Farms and Intel involves the tomato plant, which is monitored from seed to plant with an AI algorithm that predicts the plant’s needs. The AI takes into account things like the weather and adjusting irrigation if the temperature increases. Then, the AI helps determine the right time to harvest the tomato based on the size and colour. After harvest, AI assists with sorting and quality assurance, reducing packing time and allowing tomatoes to get to store shelves faster. Intel says tomatoes can get from Nature Fresh Farms to grocery stores in 24-48 hours instead of the regular four to 10 days.
There’s even a flashy website detailing Intel’s and Nature Fresh Farms’ efforts through a variety of statistics and data. I found it somewhat interesting, but how exciting all this is really comes down to how much you care about tomatoes. There’s even a live daily data dashboard detailing things like temperature, water impact, and growth and production metrics.
Whether you care about tomatoes or not, it’s actually pretty interesting to see AI applications like this. When people talk about AI, I tend to think of generative AI, which I’m not convinced is as useful as people say. However, using AI to improve farming output is definitely useful and might make me think twice before dismissing the AI hype.
Header image credit: Intel
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