Artificial Intelligence in Practice

43John Deere: Using Artificial Intelligence To Reduce Pesticide Pollution In Agriculture

John Deere was founded by a small-town blacksmith as a toolmaker, and over 150 years later has become one of the world's leading manufacturers and suppliers of agricultural and industrial machinery.

It has always been a technological innovator – investing in gasoline engines to mechanize its farming machinery in the early 20th century, and in GPS technology to begin the march towards automation in the late 1990s.¹

Over the last decade, John Deere has transformed into more of a technology company – selling data as a service to allow farmers to make better informed decisions when it comes to running their operations. In addition, the company is offering autonomously driving tractors,² intelligent sensors and software and even agriculture drones.³

What Problem Is Artificial Intelligence Helping To Solve?

The world's population currently sits at around 7.5 billion and is expected to grow to over 9 billion by 2050.⁴ Feeding all these hungry mouths is going to require increasing the amount of food we produce by 70%, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. At the same time, due to increasing urbanization, climate change and soil degradation, the amount of land suitable for farming will decrease.

This means that efficient use of the land is critical – which in turn means an increase in the use of fertilizers. However, these bring their own environmental risks, as well ...