AFA Looks To A Future With Advanced Technology

Elizabeth Fastiggi,

At its Annual Leaders Conference earlier this month, held in the Sheraton Kansas City Hotel, Agriculture Future of America took a look at how technology is shaping the future of farming.  It was AFA’s most well-attended conference to date. Elizabeth Fastiggi, Global Head of Agri-food at Amazon Web Services (AWS) was guest speaker at the opening breakfast gathering hosted by the Agricultural Business Council of Kansas City.

“Agriculture is no stranger to harnessing the powerful combination of human ingenuity and machinery and technology,” said Fastiggi. The industry has made tremendous strides in guiding humans to be more efficient, she noted, allowing farming operations to be incredibly productive. “While this technology is rapidly evolving, it is still in its infancy.”

Fastiggi was glad that AFA and Agricultural Business Council thought to incorporate this topic into the agenda. “We as an agriculture ‘industry’ [referring to her particular division’s agricultural focus on generative AI & Innovation] have an opportunity to collaborate with each other and foster the dialogue that also leads to this technology being used responsibly and to the benefit of the farmer and the natural resources so vital to food production and security.”

AWS provides cloud computing infrastructure and over 200 services to ag businesses globally, including more than 20 Fortune 500 ag and food companies.  “We help organizations of all sizes leverage their data more cost efficiently to derive business value and build products that delight their customers,” she said. Given this diverse mix of customers, Fastiggi explained, AWS can help customers use artificial intelligence and machine learning across the value chain. AWS has many customers using its platforms and machine learning services to power their R&D programs that analyze data from field and support clinical trials that determine which genetics or molecules to advance in the pipeline. “AWS is also set up to help farmers with recommendations and decision making or optimizing their supply chains with better demand planning and optimizing routes.

The Time’s Right

Fastiggi asked why all this technology is happening now. She answered her question with these responses:

• “First, there is a proliferation of data. Let’s think about this from the
  agriculture perspective--we are very good at capturing data. We have more
  cost effective and rugged versions of sensors and devices and on farm
  equipment is incredibly sophisticated – we are awash in data.”

• “Next, the cost of compute capacity has come down considerably and it is
  more accessible than ever—this is something that AWS has been doing for
  customers for over a decade now.”

• “And then of course, we have the advancement of Machine Learning technologies and
  modeling capabilities.”

So a tipping point has been reached, she concluded: “The convergence of technological
progress and an understanding of the value of what it can accomplish.”