As the population of the world grows, so does our consumption of food. This means that some farming or food production techniques that were used before might no longer be viable or as efficient, at least not efficient enough to meet today’s demand. However it looks like Google’s parent company Alphabet is looking into that problem.
The company’s secretive “moonshot” X lab has recently embarked in an exploration on how to improve food production, and one of the ways that they are looking at is the use of artificial intelligence. At the moment it appears that the team has yet to come up with any particular approach, but according to Astro Teller, the head of X, they have some potential ideas worth exploring.
One of which is using AI to help make decisions on when it might be best to harvest crops, or where it might be the most ideal to apply irrigation. Another would be using AI to help better predict things like the weather, pests, and other factors that can affect production. This is actually a very important study because according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, an estimated 20-40% of global crop yields are lost to pests and diseases.
This means that the amount that actually makes it to consumers is less than what it could be. Alphabet’s X lab is not alone in their study but hopefully with their resources, they’ll be able to come up with some viable solutions.
Filed in . Read more about AI (Artificial Intelligence), Alphabet and Science.