Petri Dish: Why AI Will Replace the Farmer

• Artificial Intelligence - AI - is taking over the world. The sooner we accept that fact the better we might be able to adjust to the new reality. 

• This includes agriculture where robotics, precision farming, and other forms of AI are already showing substantial benefits. 

• Given agriculture in general is consolidating, fewer farmers will be needed, particularly with machines driven by AI make the system more efficient. 

My friend and former coworker Kieran Gartlan, and one-time tour guide of Brazil, who just happened to introduce me to the national cocktail Caipirinha, recently wrote an interesting piece titled “Messy Job: Why AI Won’t Replace the Farmer”. Kieran’s points are well taken, particularly when he defines what a “messy”^[i] job is: one that is difficult to describe and almost impossible to predict”. Kieran is describing chaos, as in Chaos Theory, a factor that makes prediction nearly impossible as well. 

But yet we have AI-driven predictive websites that have become all the rage over the last year. These sites predict everything from the latest athletic competition (e.g. World Cup), to weather, markets, and even when Earthlings will comingle with Martians^[ii]. Given this, just because the job of farming is impossible to predict from day to day doesn’t mean it won’t eventually be run by AI. I’ll remind you again of my recent conversation with my replacement, Barchart’s AI analyst CARL. For the record, though, for this piece I did ask CARL the most frequently asked question I get asked, “What will the high be for the Dec26 corn futures contract?” CARL answered honestly, “Hi Darin, As an AI, I cannot predict future market prices or what the ultimate high for the December 2026 Corn futures contract (ZCZ26) will be.” Think about that next time one of the talking heads on weekend ag “news” shows starts making price predictions. 

Do I think AI, in all its forms (robotics, precision ag, etc.) will take over farming someday? Yes. To that I will add someday may already be here. 

How many of you watch the Amazon Prime program Clarkson’s Farm^[iii]? The premise is longtime television presenter and car enthusiast Jeremy Clarkson bought a farm, called it Diddly Squat Farm, in the Cotswolds in Oxfordshire, England. When he began he knew nothing about farming with most episodes focusing on the chaos he created by trying to do anything. As the series have progressed, series 5 ran during June 2026, we see Clarkson continuing to grow as an advocate for agriculture and everything farm-to-table.

In the most recent series (season, to those of us in the US), Clarkson takes his younger farm manager to the Netherlands to visit the high-tech operation of Dutch farmer Jacob van den Borne. As Jennifer Hewit wrote on LinkedIn a few weeks ago, “Drones cover his entire fields in minutes, sensors read soil conditions at centimeter precision, and AI makes planting decisions so exact the variance across that field has all but disappeared. I was completely captivated. Not just by the technology but by the fact that this was farming…”. Well said by Ms. Hewitt. It summed up my thoughts perfectly as I watched the program.

Clarkson, with all his fumbling and bumbling, returned to his farm in England and started using some of the same technology, including robotics that both cultivated and planted his fields while he watched it all unfold from his office. A room turned into what looked to be NASA’s command center. Granted, Mr. Clarkson has the financial ability to pay for all this new technology, something his neighbors can’t do, giving him an advantage. But isn’t this what farming has become around the world?

A consistent trend we’ve seen in agriculture around the globe is toward consolidation. Big farms are getting bigger as small farmers get old, retire, and sell. Those who would follow in their footsteps have taken other paths, one that might actually lead to an income enough to support a family. In one of the programs, Clarkson is going over year-end books with his farm advisor (and one of the breakout stars of the show) Charlie Ireland. The actual farm profit was £144. Thus, the selling of smaller farms to larger, in some cases corporate farms. It’s not complicated, but simple Economies of Scale^[iv]. 

Having broached the subject of Economics, let me introduce the Law of Diminishing Returns^[v]. To avoid this, larger farms will need fewer farmers in order to keep the benefit of additional output from decreasing. To do this, operations like Mr. van den Borne’s will become the standard rather than the exception. In other words, just as with human analysts, news reporters, etc., world agriculture won’t need farmers. As Michael Corleone famously said in The Godfather, “It’s not personal, it’s business”. 

Meghan Vick had a recent post on LinkedIn that opened with, “Farmers and ranchers are using AI as a time-saver and support tool, but they’d like it to do more”, then asked, “So what does ‘more’ actually look like?”

Unfortunately, most won’t like what the answer to that question looks like. 
 

^[i] He also mentioned how he has been watching the “Messi masterclass” the 2026 World Cup has become. To play along, the Petri Dish part of my title refers to Spain’s star midfielder Pedri. 

^[ii] When that day comes, I’m hoping I’ll meet a race of Marvin the Martians of Looney Tunes fame. 

^[iii] Give the official soundtrack to Clarkson’s Farm as well. It’s well done. 

^[iv]Defined by AI as: When a company’s average cost of production decreases as it output increases. By producing good in larger volumes, businesses can spread fixed costs over more units and negotiate better deals with suppliers.  

^[v] Again from AI: An economic principle stating that as you incrementally increase one input (like labor, time, or capital) in a production process while holding all other inputs constant, the additional output (or benefit) generated by each new unit will eventually decrease.