In this November 2024 video, USDA Agricultural Research Service research ecologist Dr. Steven Mirsky talks about the need for advanced robotics, machine learning, and other artificial intelligence tools to ensure a growing U.S. agriculture. Mirsky notes that scientists are well positioned to lead the revolution in building robust, open-source image recognition pipelines that can train machines to identify and target individual plants or pests rapidly and enable site-specific solutions to agricultural problems. The vital need for these advanced tools grows as the agricultural workforce continues to shrink.

Congratulations to a collaborative PSA team which recently took 2nd place in the OpenCV competition! The team, from NCSU, Aarhus University, USDA ARS, and Texas A&M University, was lead by Paula Ramos Giraldo.

Farmers have no shortage of tools to increase their crop output, but the Agriculture Department is taking the next step with industry to help establish the data-driven farms of the future. …

Farmers around the world are facing the urgent question of how to sustainably feed a global population expected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050 — and the answer, in part, might be found …