New article in Communications of the ACM

A new publication from Prof. Ilias Tagkopoulos and the collaborators about Advancing AI in agriculture through large-scale collaborative research.

AI-Generated Abstract: This article highlights the crucial role of five federally funded AI Institutes (AgAID, AIFARMS, AIFS, AIIRA, and AI-LEAF) in advancing the “Agriculture 4.0” digital revolution to address the global challenge of increasing food production amid diminishing resources and climate change. These institutes, supported by the USDA NIFA and NSF, form a nationwide coalition bringing together AI and agricultural experts to tackle pressing issues in specialty crops, autonomous farming, food systems, climate resilience, and sustainable forestry. Their collaborative research has yielded significant technical outcomes, such as AI models for grape cold-hardiness and streamflow prediction, autonomous cover-crop planting robots, FoodAtlas for molecular food data, large foundation models like InsectNet, and knowledge-guided machine learning for carbon cycle quantification. Beyond research, the institutes are actively preparing an AI-ready workforce through diverse training programs for K-12 students, undergraduates, and the current agricultural workforce, and have recently drafted a 10-year roadmap to guide future priorities for the responsible and sustainable adoption of AI in agriculture.

Reference: Adve, Vikram, Steve Brown, Alan Fern, Baskar Ganapathysubramanian, Ananth Kalyanaraman, Shashi Shekhar, Ilias Tagkopoulos, and Jessica Wedow. “Advancing AI in agriculture through large-scale collaborative research.” Communications of the ACM (2025). doi: 10.1145/3760437