A lack of confidence, limited training and uncertainty about the benefits may be stopping farm businesses from getting value from artificial intelligence (AI), speakers told a Farmers Weekly Women in Agriculture Network webinar.
Louise Penn, an agronomist and farming consultant with Ceres Rural, said a big obstacle is that many farmers do not know what AI can already do. She once helped a farmer use ChatGPT to summarise the requirements of an environmental scheme instead of waiting for her to prepare them; when she returned two weeks later, he was trying out several other applications. "I think that we somehow need to try to transfer those skills over to farmers," she said.
AI can organise workloads, draft emails and simplify complicated information, cutting time spent on paperwork, Penn said, though she questioned whether efficiency would make working lives better, since people tend to take on more work. She warned against defaulting to AI for everything at the cost of independent judgement. Larger agricultural businesses are already investing in AI for management decisions, she said, while smaller farms often lack the time, money or skills to explore it.
Amelia Stevens, managing director of Four Cymru, said women can face an extra barrier because they feel more pressure to prove their competence, and using AI for tasks they already understand can feel "like you're cheating". She cited research suggesting women have historically been more reluctant than men to use AI at work.
For newcomers, Stevens advised picking one time-consuming task rather than trying to master several platforms: "Focusing on one dull task is the key for anybody who's new to their journey, and treat it as a sort of fast assistant that can be wrong." She also urged caution with data, saying she never enters anything confidential or anything that cannot leave the business.
The report is based on a Farmers Weekly Women in Agriculture Network webinar.
Source: Farmers Weekly
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