Agriculture & Food Systems Weekly AI News
December 1 - December 9, 2025The way farmers grow food is changing fast because of artificial intelligence and smart computer systems. Farmers are no longer doing all their work by hand like farmers did many years ago. Instead, AI agents - which are like helpful computer brains that can see things and make smart decisions - are helping farmers every single day.
One exciting example is happening right now in Florida, United States. Scientists at the University of Florida just started building a brand new building that costs $40 million. This special building will have robot machines that can pick crops, cameras that can see plant problems, and computers that learn from lots of information. Dr. Nathan Boyd and his team are not just sitting in laboratories thinking about ideas. They actually go talk to real farmers and ask them what problems they have. Then the scientists create AI tools that solve those exact problems. The scientists want to make sure the AI is easy for farmers to use and actually works well on real farms.
One really amazing AI tool is a computer vision system that can find weeds in apple orchards. This matters a lot because farmers need to kill weeds but keep their apple trees safe and healthy. The AI system is so smart that it can see weeds hiding on the sides of plants. It can figure out exactly where each weed grows and how many weeds there are in a field. This helps robot sprayers know exactly where to shoot chemicals, so farmers do not waste any chemicals or hurt their good plants. The AI makes farming much more exact and clean.
Something important happened in San José, Costa Rica on December 2, 2025. More than 50 people from 24 different countries got together to talk about AI and keeping food safe. These experts explained how AI can spot pests and diseases super early, before they destroy whole crops and make people sick. When AI finds problems fast, countries can work together to stop bad bugs and sickness from spreading to other farms. AI also helps people at borders check food much faster and more accurately when it comes to their countries.
In Hong Kong, China, farmers and people who care about nature are using AI in a wonderful new way. They put special cameras connected to super-fast internet on high places to watch birds and animals. Smart sensors buried in the ground measure water and soil all day and all night without stopping. The AI looks at pictures from the cameras to find birds and even to warn about wildfires very early. All these machines are powered by solar panels, which means they use the sun's energy and do not need electricity wires from the city. This project shows that AI can help grow food AND protect nature at the same time.
But there is a problem that needs fixing. Farmers in the United States really want to use AI on their farms, but many do not have good internet connections. If a farmer lives far from the city, the internet is often too slow or doesn't work well. AI systems need fast internet to send pictures and information from the fields to computers that make decisions. Without fast internet, AI agents cannot do their job correctly. This is why getting strong internet service to farms is just as important as creating the AI itself.
The big story is that artificial intelligence is changing farming forever in the best way possible. These smart computer systems watch crops constantly, find problems early, save water and poisonous chemicals, and help farmers make better choices. Farmers in Florida, Costa Rica, St. Kitts and Nevis, Hong Kong, and many other places are already enjoying the benefits. As more farmers use AI, more food will grow on farms, farmers will spend less money, and our Earth will stay healthier. The farms of tomorrow will be smart, connected, and helpful to people living all over the world.